Wales’ largest supply teaching provider paid two directors almost £1 million over two years. Yet supply teachers’ pay and conditions are well below those of permanent staff. This unfairness has prompted a demonstration in Cardiff on 7th July.
What is the Executive Board member for Education & Children doing to arrange for the commissioning and deployment of supply teachers via alternative arrangements including via direct employment?
Minutes:
“Wales’ largest supply teaching provider paid two directors almost £1 million over two years. Yet supply teachers’ pay and conditions are well below those of permanent staff. This unfairness has prompted a demonstration in Cardiff on 7th July. What is the Executive Board member for Education & Children doing to arrange for the commissioning and deployment of supply teachers via alternative arrangements including via direct employment?”
Response by Councillor Glynog Davies, Executive Board Member for Education and Children:-
I would like to start off by saying that supply teachers are an essential resource for our schools. They of course, step into the breach when teachers are ill and therefore ensure that the teachers continue the absence of the regular teacher at the school. But of course, we do need supply teachers when our teachers go on courses and those training courses are an essential part of the development of those individuals. It is important that our teachers develop their skills and therefore you can see that the supply teachers are an essential part of the success of our education system.
Finding good individuals, competent and qualified teachers can be very difficult, at times it can be impossible, so it is important to have some kind of system in place.
I am ready to admit this morning that there are difficulties, so can I assure Councillor Bill Thomas that myself and the department are taking note of the point and the work of the Welsh Government. We do want to see an answer to this issue of this difficult position. We have distributed the documents and guidelines which have been released by the Welsh Government and ESTYN. You can have copies of those if you would like. But what is important is that teachers are qualified for the work.
What
is Welsh Government doing? What is Labour in Wales doing to ensure
fair play for supply teachers? A
ministerial workforce was established in June 2016, then there was
a report in February 2017 which was updated by Kirsty Williams, the
Cabinet Secretary for Education in September of last
year. Welsh Government is looking for
alternative models for employing supply teachers.
It is currently the UK’s government which determines the pay
scale and terms of reference for supply teachers. It could, and I hope it does, become a Welsh
Government responsibility. We have been
told that the earliest that this responsibility can be transferred
is September of next year. A year this
September.
Here in Carmarthenshire we are currently part of a pilot scheme financed by Welsh Government which helps those teachers that just become newly qualified. The aim is to give them some help and assistance to get onto the career ladder, to get that first job is so important. We want to increase our teaching capacity. There are 11 Counties have shown an interest in this pilot scheme and I am very proud to say that we in Carmarthenshire are one of those. It is a scheme that we are operating in Coed Cae School in Llanelli. 3 new qualified teachers were employed and these will now be available to supply days according to need. We specifically, and this was intentional, we did recruit bilingual teachers so they are available to go to Welsh classes or English classes. It is too early yet to measure the effectiveness of this scheme, but we and the department believe it is a good scheme. It’s an interesting one, but the question that we all are asking is, ‘is it sustainable’? I will make sure that there will be a report presented to the Scrutiny Committee on Education. Also at the request of the Executive Board, the CMT team are looking at our work with agencies. We as a County, as a department we want to have the best value for money, also we want to have a fair pay for our workers.
You have referred to one company, I know who the company is and I am not going to name the company as we are webcasting this morning. They are a third supplier, but it is not mandatory that schools use this company. I’m the Chair of Governors at Brynamman, this company has failed to help us in the past, not one who met our needs was available. But the contract was awarded to them after a thorough tender process. The technical requirements were met, also the commercial terms that is the price paid for the service was acceptable and therefore that was the most economical tender, that is the one, I take it you are referring to.
Their recruiting strategy is comprehensive, it is overarching, I can provide you with those details. Can I just say that our spending on supply teachers currently stands at over £4m. Now around over £930k was paid to that particular company. I know of 14 companies that are used in Carmarthenshire and they are all private companies and we as an Authority have no control whatsoever over their wages. No control whatsoever.
Can I also say this to close, that we have as a County an insurance scheme which is an extremely good one and we offer this to our schools. I am very hopeful that the schools will take advantage and do an SLA which would be of benefit to them as schools themselves. They can then save money, only that they listen to us. So if you are on a Governing Body in a school, and the majority of you are, can I encourage you all to take advantage of our insurance scheme for supply teachers? It is of benefit to our schools, I do have information about all the companies here and I am very willing to transfer that information to Councillor Bill Thomas. Thank you very much.
Councillor Bill Thomas asked the following supplementary question:-
Thank you for a detailed answer to the question. The question was not intended to criticises supply teachers, I appreciate they are an essential requirement to the school environment. It doesn’t benefit pupils to have disenchanted teachers going into classrooms. The maybe disenchanted because as a supply teacher they know they are being paid a fraction compared to the teachers in the next classroom. So I am pleased that you have said that Carmarthenshire is taking part in the task group that the Welsh Government have set up and also you have taken up the opportunity to take part in the pilot. You are right there is obviously a benefit to those newly qualified teachers who are then employed as part of that pilot but it is also of benefit to the school as well, because they won’t be paying as what by be described as exorbitant fees to agencies. Could you tell us what the next 12 months is likely to bring in terms of supply teachers, particularly in Carmarthenshire?
Response by Councillor Glynog Davies, Executive Board Member for Education and Children:-
As I said, supply teachers are essential and we are doing our best to increase the capacity that is our intention. That is our vision for the County that this pilot scheme that we have commenced with the support of the Welsh Government succeed. I hope that it is viable and that we can expand that scheme, because as you say supply teachers have to be good. We just don’t want any other body walking into a class that doesn’t know the class and has no idea what they have been taught in the past. We want a system that is thorough. That is why I want supply teachers also, to go on training courses, they need to be developed so hopefully in the next 12 months we can expand and add on to what we have already commenced.