Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what guidance her Department provides to (a) schools and (b) Multi-Academy Trusts on appropriate staffing levels; and what assessment she has made of trends in the level of overstaffing in (i) maintained schools and (ii) academies.

The department supports school leaders by providing a range of resources, including commercial resources and benchmarking tools. This includes our school staffing guidance, designed to help employers in all schools with staffing and employment issues, and to inform their decision making. It provides information to relevant legislation and sources of up-to-date guidance and advice that employers need to consider.

We have also made resources available as part of the ‘Maximising Value for Pupils’ programme, including the financial benchmarking and insight tool, which helps schools examine their financial data and benchmark spending against similar schools and trusts, and the ‘Energy for Schools’ pilot, which has identified 36% savings for schools on their energy bills.

The department publishes an annual headcount of those working in schools in the School Workforce Census, with the latest release available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england/2024.