Tory Timeline

12 May 2010 to 4 July 2024

12 MAY
2010

They never promised us a Rose Garden

In only the second general election to return a hung parliament since the Second World War, the Tories failed to secure a working majority - and they've been failing teachers and children ever since. The Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition Agreement was hammered out over five days following the result of the 6 May election. It culminated in David Cameron being appointed Prime Minister, Nick Clegg Deputy Prime Minister and a cabinet composed of members of both parties.

12 MAY
2010

What's Gove got to do with it?

Michael Gove began the longest (and busiest) tenure of the ten Tory Education Secretaries we've had since 2010. His opening salvoes were to blame 'left-wing ideologies' which condemned children to a 'prison house of ignorance' and to lock horns with 'The Blob' - people most of us call educational professionals. He set about his 'academy revolution', leaving schools without local authority oversight, free to set their own curriculum and staff pay. Devolved nations missed out on the cash injections that academies attracted.

22 JUN
2010

Buckle up (and tighten your belt)

Taxes were up, public sector pay frozen and national frameworks abandoned: the government claimed that 'austerity' measures were needed to reduce the budget deficit, with the emphasis on shrinking the state rather than the fiscal consolidation more commonly practised in Europe. This consisted of slashing £30bn from welfare payments, housing subsidies and social services. They claimed they were protecting education from spending cuts, but in 2023 the IFS found that education spending had fallen from 5.6% of GDP to 4.4%.

5 JUL
2010

Someone left the kids out in the rain

Michael Gove announced that Labour's flagship Building Schools for the Future programme, dubbed 'the biggest school building programme since Victorian times', was to be scrapped. Ending the programme led to the immediate cancellation of more than 700 school refurbishment or replacement programmes in England. Mr Justice Holman later called his failure to consult unlawful and 'so unfair as to amount to an abuse of power'. Gove later admitted this was the biggest mistake he made in office.

17 OCT
2010

If I were a rich teacher...

The STRB was issued with a considerably reduced remit as the consequence of the two-year public sector pay freeze imposed by the Emergency Budget earlier that year. STRB remits from this point forward were characterised by narrow and restrictive conditions, leading to the erosion of teachers' pay and years of real-terms pay cuts. This was the introduction of an ongoing period of pay freezes and caps that saw in the birth of today's teacher recruitment and retention crisis.

20 OCT
2010

The first cut...

The UK Government's 2010 Spending Review would see Northern Ireland's block grant cut by 6.9%, Scotland would lose 6.8% and Wales 7.5% by 2014/15. While Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales Governments determine the allocation of public sector spending, their overall budget is directly influenced by Westminster's decisions through the Barnett formula which is used to calculate annual funding in the devolved nations. Westminster Government austerity policy had a direct negative impact on education funding and depressed wages in real terms.

26 MAR
2011

March for the Alternative

NASUWT took part alongside other trade unions in the anti-cuts march and rally in London organised by the TUC. Hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered at The Embankment and marched past the Houses of Parliament to the Hyde Park rally where speakers included politicians and leaders from the trade union movement. 'March for the Alternative' called for jobs, growth and justice and was the largest union-organised rally in London since the Second World War.

15 NOV
2011

He came in like a wrecking ball

In a further attempt to atomise England's school workforce, the Education Act 2011 allowed Gove to continue his programme of reform and accretion of power to the 'Secretary of State' and gave rise to the academy/free school presumption which states that any local authority in need of a new school must seek proposals for an academy. The Act also extended search powers for teachers, abolished several educational institutions and gave more power over student debt to the Secretary of State.

20 NOV
2011

There’s gonna be a (quiet) revolution

NASUWT members voted overwhelmingly for industrial action in the first national ballot by the Union for over a decade in a bid to 'reclaim the classroom' and protect educational standards. Nearly a quarter of a million NASUWT teacher and leader members took part in the ballot, with 82% voting for strike action and 91% voting for action short of strike action. A joint day of action took place on 30 November, co-ordinated by the TUC, ICTU, STUC and WTUC.

27 JUL
2012

Losing my profession

It was announced that England's academy schools would no longer be required to employ qualified teachers, an extension of the rules that had been applied to free schools. Qualified teacher status (QTS) signals that a teacher has been trained and approved as meeting a range of standards. NASUWT called it an attempt to 'make teaching the poor relation of the professions' and said that every child deserves to be taught by a qualified teacher.

1 SEP
2014

Give a little respect - no, not that little

The teachers’ pay structure was stripped from the STPCD, with the exception of minima and maxima points. This allowed schools in England and Wales to design their own pay structures and pay progression. Teachers could no longer expect 'pay portability', so a teacher transferring schools would no longer be guaranteed the same rate of pay. This is significantly detrimental to women teachers looking to return to the classroom after taking time out for family commitments.

7 OCT
2015

Back to pay, back to austerity

With Nicky Morgan now at the helm, the policy of public sector pay restraint was reiterated to the STRB with the following recommendation: 'What adjustments should be made to the salary and allowance ranges for classroom teachers, unqualified teachers and school leaders to promote recruitment and retention within an average pay award of 1%?' And teachers largely got the pittance that she asked for: 1% on all pay points and allowances, with 2% for teachers on the maximum.

19 JUL
2017

Will you still need me when I’m 68?

As the culmination of a turbulent period of pensions reform for teachers, the government announced that the rise in the state pension age to 68 would be brought forward seven years. This followed the replacement of the final salary teachers' pension with a career average scheme and previous increases in employee contributions. To rub salt into the pay wounds, teachers were expected to pay more and work considerably longer for a pension that would be worth substantially less.

1 JUL
2018

In Hinds’ sight

The IFS estimated that just 40% of teachers received the STRB's recommended pay uplift when Damien Hinds refused to accept their 'independent' recommendation for an across-the-board 3.5% pay rise. He announced a 3.5% for teachers on the main pay range, 2% for those on the upper pay range and just 1.5% for those in leadership positions. This did not, as we now know, help with his intention to stem the exit of teachers in the early years of their career.

20 MAR
2020

Covid pandemic

UK schools and colleges were told to close their gates to the majority of students. Three days later, we saw the biggest ‘lockdown’ of society in our history. Teachers and other key workers were left to deal with the fallout from the government’s reckless handling of the pandemic, closing schools, failing to apply workplace safety measures and leaving schols at the mercy of the virus. NASUWT members worked day and night to keep schools safe and demand vaccines and testing.

1 JUL
2020

They gotta pick a pocket or two

During the first months of the Covid pandemic, the government admitted to a ‘consistent failure to meet initial teacher training targets…as well as increasing attrition’ in the profession. Gavin Williamson created a divide between existing teachers and those starting their career in 2020 by accepting the full 5.5% STRB recommendation for the minimum on the main pay range, while awarding just half that - 2.75% - to all other pay and allowance ranges.

2 JUN
2021

Will you still fund me?

The Tory Government's own 'catch-up tsar’ resigns over their refusal to implement a credible plan for education recovery. After months of pandemic chaos, amid an education crisis, Sir Kevan Collins had set out a fully evidenced, fully costed plan that included meticulous calculations of the effects of school closures on children's education and the knock-on effects for the economy. Less than a third of the additional costs facing schools were covered by the government’s support fund.

12 JUL
2023

We will survive!

During a period characterised by industrial unrest, the NASUWT ballot of some schools and colleges in England saw the largest national industrial action mandate in our history and we ran the highest number of workplace disputes on record in response to the actions of the government. Within weeks, they had capitulated and increased their original 4.5% offer to 6.5%, promised extra funding of £1.4 billion and committed to a package of new measures to tackle workload and working time.

20 July
2023

Rights fever…

Rather than address the underlying problems that had festered during their time in office, the Tories resorted to legislation, imposing ‘Minimum Service Levels’ in public services such as education, fire and rescue, health and transport as their response to the widespread industrial crisis in the public sector. This divisive erosion of workers’ rights allows employers to issue ‘work notices’ specifying which employees would be prevented from taking part in legitimate industrial action, exposing them to potential dismissal if they did.

04 April
2024

...rights fever

Rishi Sunak indicated that he would be willing to withdraw the UK from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) if it got in the way of his controversial plan to ship migrants to Rwanda. This would align us with Belarus and Russia, the only other European nations not signed up to the ECHR, and not only put everyone’s rights at risk, but would also breach the Good Friday Agreement, which requires the Convention to be directly enforceable in Northern Ireland.

26 APR
2024

Whenever, wherever, we’re meant to be together

By April 2024, NASUWT members in Northern Ireland had settled their long-running dispute with a 1% award for 2021/22, 5% for 2022/23 and 4.1% plus £1,000 for 2023/24; teachers in Scotland had received the final part of their staged pay award, consisting of 7% from 1 April 2022, 5% from1 April 2023 and 2% from 1 January 2024; however, the Welsh Government has refused to increase their 5% award to match England's 6.5% despite joint union protestations.

4 JUL
2024

Things can only get better

NASUWT's campaign for a New Deal for Teachers is calling for a change of direction from whoever wins at the general election ballot box on 4 July 2024. Teachers and children have gone through some of the most turbulent times in recent history, with recession, Brexit and Covid forming the backdrop to 14 years of neglect, decline and attrition. Read our Manifesto for Teachers.
It's time for change - and it is ours for the taking.




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