Experienced supply teachers are leaving the profession to work in better paid employment, such as stacking shelves in supermarkets. However, there is a solution and it is closer to hand than you might think. Around 25 years ago, most supply teachers in the UK were employed through local authority (LA) supply pools. On the whole, the supply pools did not work well. They did not help teachers find work or schools find teachers. The pools just handled paying teacher’s wages and sorted out contributions to the Teacher’s Pension. Around this time, private supply agencies began to appear in the market. They offered school’s the service of a single phone call to the supply agency: who would then locate a teacher for the school. To begin with, working for a supply agency paid a similar wage to working through the LA supply pool. However, over time, supply teacher wages from the agencies have fallen, whilst the charges to schools have generally increased: increasing profits to the agencies. Indeed, many supply teachers, who have been around long enough, report that the rates being offered today are either similar or identical to the rates offered 25 years ago, when the agencies first appeared. Worst still, many schools, with ever tightening budgets, are asking for teaching assistants (TA) only. Agencies in some areas are now only offering work to supply teachers at teaching assistant rates, which are often only just above the National Minimum Wage. On top of this, many agencies have now out-sourced their payroll to umbrella companies, which the supply teachers have to pay for. Being paid through an umbrella company means the supply teacher also has to pay the employers National Insurance and pension contributions. Also, supply agencies charge schools thousands of pounds in ‘finders fees’ if they wish to employ supply teachers long term. These factors: no pay rise in 25 years; being employed as a TA (not as a teacher) and being paid through umbrella companies, means that experienced teachers who, for a multitude of reasons, find themselves teaching on supply, are leaving the profession due to the poor rates of pay offered by these agencies. There is, however, another way of supplying teachers to schools. Since 2006, the Northern Ireland Substitute Teacher Register (NISTR) has been supplying cover teachers via a completely computerised system. Run from Belfast City Hall, NISTR combines a database of all teachers in Northern Ireland with a software package leased from one of the commercial supply agencies. Instead of schools calling an agency, they have direct access to the database and the ability to book whichever teacher they need. This could be one of the teachers who work regularly at the school, one who is geographically close or one with the specialism required: but the decision is made by the school, not the agency. Because it is run by Belfast City Hall, all of the teachers are paid in line with their full-time colleagues (in England, they receive on average only 60% of their full-time wage) and contributions are paid to their Teachers Pension (teachers through private agencies are excluded from this). This system has been fully tested and has been running for 15 years in Northern Ireland. In 2018, it was also proven that NISTR could be easily duplicated. The Isle Of Man, due to its location, had struggled for years to get adequate supply cover through private agencies. The Manx government engaged a software company to create a computerised system based on NISTR and created Education Supply. This has now been running successfully for 3 years, paying supply teachers on the island their full wage and contributing to their Teacher’s Pension. To make supply teaching sustainable in England and Wales and to stop the drain of experienced teachers leaving the profession, I suggest introducing the NISTR model of computerised supply engagement to England and Wales. This could be either a national supply service or established autonomously in each local authority. Local authorities have already been approached about re-establishing supply pools, but their reservations have always been a lack of manpower and finance. . A national service would be better for supply teachers, as many teachers work regularly across a number of LAs. It makes no difference to a computerised system whether it is placing 1,000 or 100,000 supply teachers, the choice between a national or an LA based service would be purely political. If needs be, a not for profit company could be formed to run the computerised booking system for the LA: so long as the LA processes the pay, then the teacher will still have access to the Teacher’s Pension Scheme. The supply provision in England and Wales is currently very fragmented. This has been highlighted by Covid and the furlough scheme. Though almost 100% of supply teachers, according to information provided by HMRC, qualify for furlough, only 40% received any furlough in Lockdown 1 and this has dropped to 35% in Lockdown 3. Furthermore, most teachers are signed with multiple agencies and are rarely furloughed by all of their agencies: many have also not been furloughed by their main agency. In Northern Ireland, as NISTR is a public body, it does not qualify for the furlough scheme. However, the Northern Ireland administration calculated a ‘furlough-like’ compensation which all supply teacher in NISTR received. The same happened in Scotland, where the majority of supply teachers are still employed through LA supply pools. Thank you for considering my proposal today. For too long, teachers in England and Wales have been looking on enviously at the schemes in Northern Ireland and Scotland and wondering why they cannot have something similar. I am not suggesting introducing an untested system from abroad but a home-grown system which has been proven to work over 15 years: a system which could possibly stem the flow of experienced teachers leaving the profession and make supply provision in England and Wales more sustainable in the years to come.
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