Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many staff her Department plans to recruit into the Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellent teams; and by what date the team will be fully operational.

The department’s first 20 RISE advisers are now in post and work has begun with the first RISE schools. The advisers will work alongside the department to help support schools break down the barriers to opportunity and end the link between background and success. A full list of these advisers has been published on GOV.UK.

In addition to the RISE advisers in post, the department launched a recruitment campaign for a full cohort of advisers to start in the spring and summer term. We will be informing candidates of the outcome of this campaign shortly. Workforce allocations for 2025/26 have not yet been set.