Priti calls for action on supply teaching costs
Witham MP Priti Patel has called on the Government to take action to reduce the costs to schools of supply and agency teachers. Priti raised the matter with the Secretary of State for Education in the House of Commons after local head teachers raised concerns with her about these costs. Priti also questioned the Education Secretary over advertising and recruitment costs schools face too. Speaking afterwards Priti said:
“We all want to see as much funding as possible spent on providing education and frontline services in our schools. I took this matter up in the House of Commons after local schools have raised concerns about the additional bureaucracy and costs involved in securing supply teachers and in the costs of advertising and recruiting new staff. It is important that the Government takes action to bring these costs down and we await with interest to see the new framework that the Department for Education is developing to address this.”
Extract from Hansard, 19 March 2018, Columns 3-4.
The cost of advertising for teachers and the cost of supply teachers, especially through agencies, are putting strain on school funding and budgets. What action are the Government taking to ensure that more money goes to the education frontline and less on bureaucracy?
My right hon. Friend makes a very good point about one of the cost pressures facing schools. We are working on seeing what we can do to help and developing a new framework to help to bring down recruitment costs, especially on the supply teachers she mentions.