New pay offer for teachers within days, says minister

As reported by the BBC, a new pay offer will be put to teachers within days, the Scottish government has confirmed

Unions had said any new deal would need to be ‘significantly’ improved to avoid further strike action. Teachers have asked for a 10% rise, but the previous deal was worth between five per cent and 6.85% for most staff. Education secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville has told BBC Scotland a fifth offer would now be put on the table.

A series of teachers’ strikes have been held across Scotland since November, with more planned for later this month. If additional Scottish government funds are made available, a meeting of local authority body Cosla will be held on Tuesday afternoon to agree a new offer before it is presented to unions.

Ms Somerville said: “The Scottish government has been working very closely with Cosla and we hope that an improved offer will be made imminently.

“We would hope to have something that Cosla would be able to announce to teaching unions within the next day or so.”

The education secretary said she hoped the new offer would be enough to suspend planned strike action.

She also described the new proposal as both “affordable” and “exceptionally fair”.

The dispute centres on the pay rise which teachers were due to receive in April last year and the most recent offer was made before the first strike by the EIS union in November.