The Shadow Chancellor’s comments about reneging on three-year pay awards demonstrate a stark lack of integrity.

Such statements also call into question the economic credibility of the Shadow Chancellor. Three-year pay deals were designed to bring predictability and stability to planning at school, local authority and government level. This is particularly important in the volatile economic circumstances to which he refers. It is disturbing that the Shadow Chancellor does not appear recognise this.

The stability offered by these deals is more, not less important, to employers and employees in a period of economic turmoil and uncertainty. In education the three year pay awards are a package of pay and conditions of service and they are tied to three year budgeting which is linked to the Comprehensive Spending Review.

The Shadow Chancellor in pursuing this course would lead us back into the world of schools, local authorities, government departments and indeed families being unable to budget further than a year ahead with any confidence. It would take us back into an annual cycle of debate on pay and back to the situation where public sector workers receive their pay increase nearer to the end than the beginning of the year. Put simply it does not make good economic sense.

In reality the most telling of Mr Osborne’s comments was his message that “the age of excess is over and we need an age of restraint and responsibility”. While such problems have undoubtedly been seen in our banking sector and elsewhere, this “age of excess” has passed the vast majority of public sector workers by. The increases we have seen to public sector pay over the last decade have been a necessity not a luxury.

The reforms to pay settlements in the public sector have been an integral part of the reforms to our public services. Within the education sector, improvements to the pay and conditions of teachers are inextricably linked to increases in the educational attainment of our young people by attracting talented people into the teaching profession and by ensuring that once there, they are able to focus on teaching and learning. Much the same is true throughout the public sector.

It was of course  the failure by George Osborne’s ministerial predecessors, in the last Conservative government, to recognise the inseparable nature of pay, conditions and improvements in service which led to the major crisis in teacher recruitment and retention and a consequent decline in the quality of provision. It has taken ten years to rebuild the education infrastructure.

A Conservative government which sought to unpick three-year pay deals would in fact signal not only the demise of such awards but it would sabotage any prospect of the workforce being able to reach agreement on either a single or multiyear award. Reaching agreement is based on having confidence in that those with whom the agreement is made will behave honourably and remain committed to the outcome.