The issue of the employment of supply teachers is for individual schools. Schools do not necessarily have to go through those individual procedures. Local authorities are encouraged to use the consortia arrangements, because that gives us some level of confidence around, for instance, checks for the individual practitioners who may be working in our schools. One of the issues that we did find with the task and finish group is that some of these smaller organisations that organise and supply supply teachers are not following some of the basic checks that we would want to ensure ourselves were happening in our schools.

So, as I said, ultimately, there’s a model for individual schools, but I would expect that all proper protections are in place for our supply teaching workforce. What’s important to me is that we use supply teachers when necessary, but supply teaching doesn’t become the default in many of our schools, and that disrupts learning, potentially, and has an impact on standards.