supply teachers Articles

New agencies for the provision of supply teachers

The government’s buying department, the Crown Commercial Service (CCS), is creating a new national framework for the provision of supply teachers.

 

Amid growing concerns about a nationwide teacher shortage, the government wants a better deal for temporary staff and the schools that recruit them.

 

Working with the Department for Education (DfE), the CCS is finalising a new agreement that will cover all temporary and fixed term teaching and non-teaching roles.

 

This includes unqualified teaching assistants, cover supervisors, supply teachers and head teachers as well as non-classroom personnel like clerical workers and cleaners.

 

To justify the new framework, CSS highlighted school spending figures on supply staff. 

By the close of 2013, there were around 41,000 temporary teachers at work in schools in the UK. Secondary schools, in particular, had come to rely on interim staff and supply talent in much larger quantities than previously. It is a trend that demonstrates the reliance placed on this type of labour force by the UK’s Education system.