Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he has made of the number of qualified supply teachers currently not working in the education sector.
The requested information is not available.
The Department collects details of teachers working in state funded schools in England through the annual School Workforce Census. The census does identify those teachers who are employed via a service agreement, but not whether they are a supply teacher.
Teachers not currently working in state funded schools in England are not specifically identified as supply teachers. A teacher who has left a state funded school having been a supply teacher may subsequently return to employment as a permanent contracted teacher, and vice versa.