What consideration has the Cabinet Secretary given to a system whereby teaching staff are employed exclusively through local authorities, rather than agencies, similar to Scotland and Northern Ireland?
There are no plans to introduce a scheme whereby schools are legally only allowed to engage supply teaching staff from local authority run supply teacher schemes.
Under the current legislative framework schools in Wales have the power to engage supply teaching staff as their needs require and may do so via a local authority scheme or, commercial supply teacher agencies. Any change that would require supply teachers to be supplied exclusively by local authorities and would prevent schools from engaging supply teachers from any other source, will require a change to that legislative framework. Such a change will carry cost implications for both the Welsh Government, local authorities, and schools. It would also have implications for commercial supply teacher agencies. All the implications would need to be very carefully considered before adopting such a scheme.
We encourage those schools who meet their supply teacher needs via temporary staff to use agencies appointed to the Welsh Government Supply Agency Framework, given they will have met the specified quality requirements and be formally monitored. This includes being regularly audited by both the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate and an approved representative professional recruitment body, as well as signing up to the Welsh Government’s Code of Practice on Ethical Employment in Supply Chains.
More broadly we are continuing work on the National Supply Pool for Wales, intended to give teachers greater choice over how they are employed. The initial booking element of the system was launched within Ynys Mon in November 2023, and we are convening a summit in Mid-May 2024 with key stakeholders to consider the potential challenges to further rollout and how we collectively move forward.