I am a supply teacher and resident in your constituency. I would like to make you aware of an issue facing supply teachers in England and Wales which is causing many supply teachers to live in poverty or leave education altogether. Many experienced teachers end up on supply because they are forced out of their schools by bullying headteachers. When they leave their permanent positions, many teachers, first of all, turn to working as a supply teacher. The vast majority of supply teachers in England and Wales have no choice but to work through private agencies. Private agencies dominate the supply market, with 82% of the supply teachers employed through such agencies. However, through agencies, teachers are paid, on average, 40% less than their permanent colleagues and have no access to the Teacher’s Pension Scheme. This has all been brought to light by a new Government report, the Use Of Supply Teachers In Schools [1]. The report contains the following table, which demonstrates that supply teachers only receive approximately half of what private agencies charge schools, meaning they are, on average paid less than a new teacher (M1, currently £162.31 a day): Increasingly, private agencies are attempting to pay supply staff through umbrella companies, reducing further teacher’s net pay by another 20%.
Early Careers Teachers (ECT), those in their first years of teaching, are particularly targeted by agencies, often being offered £70/80 a day (max. £13,650/£15,600 pa), though there are adverts offering as little as £60 a day (max. £11,700 pa). This is far below the government’s headline grabbing £30,000 salary for new teachers. These low wages are causing supply teachers to leave the profession in search of better paid jobs elsewhere. As no data is collected in England, the evidence is only anecdotal. However. in Wales, where data is collected, between 2018 and 2021, the supply teacher workforce shrank by 11.3% [2]. According to a survey by the NEU, women , black and disabled supply teachers are disproportionately affected by the private agency supply model in England [3]. The UK Government should look to take supply provision back in-house. For example, in Northern Ireland, there is the Northern Ireland Substitute Teacher Register (NISTR) [4]. Northern Ireland Education Authority run the computerised system for the whole of Northern Ireland (1082 schools). All the supply teachers (currently 7000 teachers) are requested and placed by staff in school and are paid the same as their full-time colleagues, plus they have access to the Teacher’s Pension Scheme. This system has been successfully running since 2006. Full wages to the teachers and not £millions ending in the profit margins of private agencies. In Scotland, Local Authority supply pools are still the norm, many modelling themselves on NISTR. In Wales, the Welsh Administration is trialling a system similar to NISTR. There are also cooperative models of working being set up in England, such as Proxi Education, England’s first not-for-profit, cooperative supply service. Proxi Education has been set up by the National Supply Teachers Network, in conjunction with Co-ops UK, which aims to get as much of the money paid by the school to the teacher. This is what is needed to counter the exodus of supply teachers from education.
If you could work with your fellow MPs and Local Authority councillors to work towards bringing the supply of teachers to school back into not-for-profit, cooperative companies or Local Authority control, it should help to stem the flow of supply teachers leaving education. If you would like to know more about the plight of supply teachers in England, please do not hesitate in contacting me on or phoning me on [phone number].
Use Of Supply Teachers In Schools: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/use-of-supply-teachers-in-schools [2] Education Workforce Statistics
https://neu.org.uk/advice/member-groups/supply-staff/neu-supply-member-survey
https://www.ewc.wales/site/index.php/en/about-us/policy-and-research/workforce-statistics
https://neu.org.uk/advice/member-groups/supply-staff/neu-supply-member-survey [4] Northern Ireland Substitute Teacher Register https://www.eani.org.uk/nistr
