Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:51 pm on 24 September 2019.
I thank the First Minister for that answer. I was a member of the CYPE committee in the fourth Assembly and we did work on supply teaching, and one of our recommendations was actually to bring it back in-house rather than keep the agencies. I appreciate the Welsh Government has gone through a different approach and uses the NPS as a framework guidance. I very much appreciate your comment upon the fact that it's there to ensure teachers get fair play through the agency process. I have seen an e-mail from one of those agencies, which has won some of those frameworks—actually, 22 of them, so it's across all of Wales—which indicates to schools a way of getting around and circumventing the framework and encouraging schools to think about employing teachers out of the framework, therefore reducing the cost but also reducing the terms and conditions of the individual teacher, and, of course, making more profit for that agency. Will you look very carefully at all these agencies to ensure they're not circumventing the framework, kick them out if they are, quite rightly, and ensure that teachers get the due regard and respect they deserve, and supply teachers are part of that?