The Government has agreed to support the arbitration panel's recommendation to increase secondary teachers' base salaries by 14.5 percent.
Minister of Education Jan Tinetti made the announcement on Wednesday afternoon saying the Government is committed to investing, attracting and retaining teachers in New Zealand.
The increased offer, if accepted, will see beginner teachers receive an annual increase of almost $10,000, in addition to the $7210 lump sum payment.
The increased offer, if accepted, will boost secondary teachers' base salaries by 14.5 percent by next December.
Tinetti said the offer means teachers at the top of the pay scale will have seen a 36 percent pay increase since Labour came into power in 2017.
"I know how disruptive the past few months have been for our students, young people and their parents. We all want our young people back in the classroom learning, and this offer reinforces our commitment to that," Tinetti said.
"The panel's recommendation adds an extra cost of approximately $680 million to the $3.76 billion already set aside in the Budget to settle teachers' and principals' agreements. This includes an increase to other education collective agreements which will flow on from this decision.
"After careful consideration and weighing up the current challenging financial environment, the Government has agreed to find the money through savings from other parts of the Education Budget and Education's Budget 2024 cost pressure allowance."
To meet the additional cost, the main savings of $374 million have been found within the education budget.
These include, the removal of the option to 'bank staffing' for all schools, excluding Kaupapa Māori and Māori Medium Education from July 2025, deferring the Te Ao Marama and Hobsonville Point Secondary School projects in the Public Private Partnership Schools Expansion Programme, and rephase the current operating funding.
"The remaining $306 million will be pre-committed to the Budget 2024 allowance, specifically to the cost pressure allocation which the Minister of Finance sets at the start of the Budget process," Tinetti said.
"This is a balanced approach to increasing the pay of an important front-line workforce, while dealing with the broader fiscal pressures that the Government faces."
Tinetti said the Government is "proud" of this offer and hopes the PPTA will be too.
The PPTA members will now vote on the new offer over the next week.
"Very pleased" - PPTA
Following the Government's announcement, the PPTA confirmed it would recommend the offer to its members next week.
PPTA Te Wehengarua acting president Chris Abercrombie said he's pleased the Government has acted in good faith and accepted the panel's recommendations.
"We commend the arbitration panel for its mahi and its commitment to finding a satisfactory settlement of our collective agreement. Of course, it is not everything we wanted but it's a significant step on the path to making secondary teaching a profession that people want to join and stay in," Abercrombie said.
The Ministry of Education is expected to present the offer to the PPTA in the next 24 hours, with members then voting on it next week.
"It's now in the members' hands - and the executive will be recommending they accept the offer," Abercrombie said.
Employment lawyer Bridget Smith told AM earlier on Wednesday if the Government didn't accept the panel's recommendations, more strikes could occur and negotiations would be back to square one.
But Smith said the Government had no legal obligation to accept the recommendation.
"It's slightly unusual because generally when parties agree to arbitration, the outcome of arbitration, like the outcome of a court, is binding. But in this case, the parties agreed the arbitration panel would make a recommendation and so that recommendation has gone to the Secretary for Education," she said.
"Then they've recommended it to the Minister for Education. But then, because we're talking about the expenditure of government money under the Public Finance Act, a third party can't impose that on the Government. So all they can do is make a recommendation."
Smith predicted on AM the Government would accept the panel's recommendations.
"The Government does have, I guess, kind of a special get out of jail free clause because they can say, 'Well, actually, no, we're not going to spend these billions of dollars,'" she said.
"Personally, I think we're heading into an election, they've considered the information from this expert panel. If I was a betting woman, I would say I think they will accept it."
Abercrombie told AM earlier on Wednesday if the Government had declined the panel's recommendation he would've been "absolutely furious".
"It would be a really odd escalation in this industrial action from the Government to do this and we wouldn't put it to the members," he said.
"That wasn't in our agreement with the Government, so our national executive would have to meet immediately to discuss the next steps."
