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Public school teachers will receive higher salaries in exchange for lower social security contributions.
United Learning, a school group comprising 92 academies, has told teachers they could receive starting salaries of up to £45,000 in return for leaving the Teachers’ Pension Scheme (TPS).
The current starting salary for teachers is around £36,745 in central London and around £30,000 outside the capital.
All state schools in the UK are required to automatically enrol their staff into the defined benefit pension scheme, which includes an employer contribution of 28.6%.
The pension plan is based on salary and service, not investments. It ensures a regular source of income when you retire.
Those who opt out will be transferred to a defined contribution pension plan, which is a type of workplace pension where a pool of money is created based on your own contributions.
A United Learning spokesperson told the I newspaper that the change could “attract a new group of people to education.”
However, they added that traditional TPS would continue to be available.
“Both options cost us the same – the new one just puts more into wages and less into pensions than the traditional one,” they said.
Some criticized the measure and warned against it.
Dr Patrick Roach, NASUWT General Secretary, said Schools Week: “We would like to warn any state-funded employers who are trying to play with teachers’ pay and conditions that they are not just playing with fire, they will get burned.”
Sky News has contacted United Learning for comment.