Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if her Department will make an assessment of the potential impact of supporting the expansion of (a) local authority supply pools and (b) not-for-profit supply provision on (i) supply teachers and (ii) schools.

Supply teachers perform a valuable role and the department is grateful for their important contribution to schools across the country.

Schools and local authorities are responsible for the recruitment of their supply teachers. Local authority supply pools are one of the approaches to providing supply teachers and local authorities have the autonomy to decide whether to operate these supply teacher pools.

Supply teachers employed directly by a state-maintained school or local authority must be paid in accordance with the statutory arrangements for teachers laid down in the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document.

The department, in conjunction with the Crown Commercial Service, has established the agency supply deal, which supports schools in obtaining value for money when hiring agency supply teachers and other temporary school staff. Details of this can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/deal-for-schools-hiring-supply-teachers-and-agency-workers.