Supply Teachers

Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Education – in the Senedd at 2:24 pm on 25 November 2020.

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Photo of Kirsty Williams Kirsty Williams Liberal Democrat 2:24, 25 November 2020

Thank you, Alun. Can I say that supply teachers form a very important part of the education workforce in Wales? But under local management of schools, governing bodies have the flexibility to appoint and deploy supply teachers as they see fit. There is nothing, nothing at all, to prevent local authorities and schools, as the employers of teachers, working together with other key stakeholders—including perhaps regional consortia—to support a co-operative or collaborative model. The decision to operate any local authority list would rest with individual local authorities as the employers of school staff, and as I said, there is nothing to stop them from doing that now. We continue to have discussions with all of our local education authorities to ensure that they—or their individual schools, if they are using agencies—ensure that they do not undercut the framework arrangements we have in place with those agencies to pay the proper wages. I'm grateful for an undertaking by all the directors of education, via the Association of Directors of Education in Wales, that they will be taking action to ensure that schools are made aware of this responsibility and should not be looking to undercut the framework that we have put in place.