BBC Scotland Education Correspondent Kenneth Macdonald reports on the EIS ballot

The inquiry is to be created following the overwhelming rejection by the biggest teaching union, the EIS, of the pay and conditions deal offered by local authorities.

Earlier this week, the second-biggest union, the Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association, also threw out the deal.

The unions will now be pressing for a straight eight per cent pay increase, with industrial action a possibility.

EIS General Secretary Ronnie Smiith outlines the union's position

In a ballot, 98% of EIS members who voted were against against accepting the offer.

General Secretary Ronnie Smith said it was a stunning rejection of both the proposals and the government's handling of them.

The offer had previously been rejected by the EIS executive committee and it urged the 44,000 members to do the same.

Ronnie Smith: Teachers deserve increase

The committee said the cash being offered was insufficient to persuade it to endorse the major changes in working practices being demanded.

Speaking after the result of the ballot, Mr Smith said teachers "more than deserve" an increase in pay.

But he added: "Today's result makes clear they will not accept linking a pay increase to the kind of workload increase contained in the rejected offer, together with arrangements which would damage the working of our schools."

Mr Smith said the EIS would "respond robustly" to the government's proposals to disband the Scottish Joint Negotiating Committee, which Education Minister Sam Galbraith said had failed to resolve two teaching disputes in the last decade.

Negotiating structures

He said: "The government have to understand that it is not the negotiating structures but the management-side proposals which even some on the management side are openly beginning to admit are flawed."

Mr Galbraith expressed disappointment at the ballot outcome but said it had strengthened his resolve to get rid of the committee and set up an inquiry into how negotiations should be handled in the future.

He told BBC Scotland: "The committee simply hasn't worked. This is the second time in a decade it has tried to come up with a package and has failed.

Sam Galbraith: "The negotiating committee simply hasn't worked"

"It clearly doesn't deliver, I don't think it's in teachers' interests so we need some new mechanism and the independent committee of inquiry will look into this."

However, Mr Galbraith said that in the short term both the unions and employers would have to go back to the SJNC to try to find a solution.

Sam Galbraith: Seeking inquiry

"I am urging both sides to try to carefully resolve these issues. We need a resolution of this for our children and we need it soon," he added.

The employers side, represented by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (Cosla), has already called for an independent inquiry into the whole issue of teachers' pay.

Cosla President Norman Murray said he would seek an "urgent meeting with union negotiators to discuss a way forward".

He said: "The result was disappointing, although somewhat predictable, given the way the offer has been presented to the EIS membership by their union negotiators.

"Throughout these negotiations we have acted in good faith and produced an offer that we feel takes children and education as well as the teaching profession forward into the millennium with a positive future."

Industrial action

Some observers have said they believe it is getting late in the day to broker a deal and that the next move could be ballots by Scotland's teachers on industrial action.

The employers' proposals include introducing greater flexibility in working hours and changes to the system of promoted posts.

But pay rises averaging 14% over three years have not won approval.