Part of 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education — Postponed from 8 November – in the Senedd at 1:33 pm on 15 November 2017.
Thank you very much, Leanne. Let me make it absolutely clear: we do not condone the practice of schools or agencies negotiating low pay rates for supply teachers. The situation we have at present is that schools are responsible for the staffing of individual schools, and unless we move away from a direct management of schools model, that is currently the situation where we are at the moment. But that's not to say that we can simply rest on our laurels and do nothing until the devolution of pay and conditions arrives.
The Welsh Government recently published the code of practice of ethical employment in supply chains, and that has been circulated to all schools and to local authorities to remind them of their commitments and the Welsh Government's commitments to ethical supply processes. We've introduced this new pilot to look to see whether that provides us with a solution, moving forward. But it's also important to recognise that, when the task and finish group set up by my predecessor looked at this issue, they did not recommend moving to a central register system—they couldn't make an overall recommendation. But I'm currently scoping work on whether that would be applicable to Wales, and my officials have been to see the Northern Ireland example.