Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has any plans to extend participation in the Teachers' Pension Scheme to teachers employed by or through supply teacher agencies.

Supply teachers, who are employed by accepted employers, are able to participate in the Teachers’ Pension Scheme, and already do so. These are most commonly teachers employed by local authorities to provide supply cover to maintained schools. The employer-employee relationship is important because the employer is responsible for meeting a number of obligations, which include paying both member and employer contributions to the scheme.

Schools and local authorities are responsible for the recruitment of their supply teachers, including decisions over whether to use private agencies to recruit and manage them. If a teacher is supplied by a private agency, this is a private commercial arrangement between the school and the agency and as such there is no employer-employee relationship between the school and teacher. It is for schools and local authorities to determine how they engage supply teachers and, depending on whether this is through private agencies or accepted employers, whether participation in the scheme is permitted.