We move on to the next item, which is the Education Workforce Council (Registration Fees) Regulations 2017. I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Education to move the motion—Kirsty Williams.

Motion NDM6218 Jane Hutt

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales; in accordance with Standing Order 27.5:

Approves that the draft The Education Workforce Council (Registration Fees) Regulations 2017 is made in accordance with the draft laid in the Table Office on 12 December 2016.

Motion moved.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. If I may make a few brief remarks regarding the regulations that are before the Chamber today, Wales remains at the forefront of ensuring greater coherence and recognising the contribution that the whole education workforce makes to learner outcomes in Wales. I am sure that Members will agree that the registration of the wider educational workforce is good news, as it provides the reassurance that the workforce is deemed suitable for registration. Since 2015, the Education Workforce Council register has been expanded to include FE teachers and learning support workers in both schools and FE settings. From April 2017, the youth work sector and work-based learning practitioners will also be included.

The fee regulations set out the fee structures that categories of registrants will be required to pay annually from 1 April 2017, a fee contribution that is unchanged from that set for 1 April 2016. Both the 2014 and 2016 fee consultation set out a preferred fee model that required an amendment to the schoolteachers’ pay and conditions document and the redistribution of the £33 allowance that teachers working in maintained schools in Wales received. Members will also be aware that the STPCD is non-devolved and that, as of August 2016, the Secretary of State for Education approved the removal of the school teacher’s £33 allowance. These regulations will set the fee levels for all registration practitioners at £46, regardless of what category of registration they wish to register under. However, from 1 April 2017 and thereafter, the Welsh Government has set aside and ring-fenced a £1 million subsidy for the registration fee for the whole education workforce. This subsidy is aligned to the fact that the Welsh Minsters set the fee level and, in real terms, ensures that the practitioners’ contributions are kept low. It also recognises that learning support workers and youth support workers in Wales earn less compared to school or FE teachers, and, therefore, the subsidy reduces their actual fee contribution to £15. The remaining categories are provided with a smaller subsidy, which reduces the actual fee contribution of £45.

I, therefore, Deputy Presiding Officer, ask the Chamber to support the motion today.

Thank you very much, Cabinet Secretary, for introducing this today and I very much support the registration of all teaching and support staff. It is just particularly on support staff that I just wanted to make a comment, because, in the explanatory memorandum that you’ve just talked about, with the fee model being fair and equitable across the whole workforce, just to be clear it’s not only the grade and the pay scale that makes a significant difference. Most school and FE learning support workers are not only amongst the lowest paid of the registered staff, but they generally tend to be part-time employees, they’re term-time only, unlike most qualified teachers. Therefore, while I welcome the subsidy regime built into the regulations, the £15 fee can still be burdensome for some of the lowest paid part-time and term-time-only, predominantly women, workers. So, could I say that—? I think that it is 11 local authorities, including Merthyr and Caerphilly, which cover my constituency, that actually agreed to bear the full cost of the LSWs’ registration last year in recognition of that low pay aspect. So, could I ask the Cabinet Secretary, and, indeed, perhaps every Member in the Chamber, to encourage all 22 local authorities to follow the lead given by those 11 councils this year in meeting the full registration costs for learning support workers?

The Cabinet Secretary to reply. Thank you.

Thank you for that, Dawn, and I would welcome very much indeed the approach that’s been taken by some of the councils that you’ve outlined, and there are others in Wales that have taken that. Welsh Government recognises that some of the people that we’re requiring to register are paid at a lower level, hence the nature of the regulations—that we have tried to subsidise those on the lower pay scales more than those perhaps higher paid colleagues. The fee model proposed has been developed with three key principles in mind, and those are sustainability, proportionality, and cost-effectiveness. Now, we could create a fee model that looks at different pay scales, that looks at full-time and looks at part-time, but, in doing so in analysing that model, we’ve discovered that it could be so burdensome, cumbersome, it could become so complex, that, actually, that might lead to higher fees having to be paid for people. So, trying to keep it as simple as we have allows us to try and keep fees as low as possible, but I would commend the actions of those councils you’ve mentioned in wanting to make that contribution in the way that they have. Thank you.

Thank you very much. The proposal is to agree the motion. Does any Member object? No. Therefore, the motion is agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

Motion agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.