The government will be unable to implement its controversial plans to reform teachers' pay if they are rejected by the profession, an education minister has admitted.

The Schools Minister, Charles Clarke, said the government was committed to listening to teachers about its proposals to introduce performance-related pay increases in schools.

"We're trying to listen seriously to what people have to say," he told a London conference on the proposals. "We can't impose it on an unwilling body of people."

Teachers' unions are concerned about the introduction of performance-related pay

Mr Clarke described the planned reforms as an "an opportunity that won't come back again" and warned that a protracted wrangle between the government and the teachers' unions would benefit no-one.

"There's a great deal at stake for the government, just as there is for the teaching profession," he said. "If we descend into a great welter of bitterness, at the end of the day we will all be the losers."

Appraisal difficulties

He said that if no agreement was reached, then the government would not achieve the improvements in school performance it wanted, issues of teachers' morale and recruitment would not be addressed, and the country as a whole would suffer.

He conceded that there were problems involved in choosing an appraisal system which would decide whether an individual teacher deserved extra pay for their performance. The fairer the system, the more bureaucratic it was likely to be.

"Getting that balance right is extremely difficult," said Mr Clarke.

The minister was speaking at a conference organised by the National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers.

The Education Secretary, David Blunkett, has hinted that the pay reforms may be trialled before being introduced across England. He told the House of Commons Education Select Committee that he was prepared to be "flexible" about the timetable for introducing the reforms.