Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:54 pm on 31 January 2017.
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?