A £1 billion government scheme to link teachers' pay to results was criticised by an Ofsted report published yesterday.

The pay scheme had linked a £2000 pay rise to 250,000 teachers after they had crossed a "performance threshold".

However, Ofsted found that half of all the teachers who received the pay rise had either "no discernible pupil progress objective" or an objective so unsatisfactorily worded that it was "not fit for purpose."