Cost and numbers of supply teachers 2012 to 2015 (FOI)

​​Request

A.

How much have the Education department spent on supply teachers in each of the years from 2012 to date?

B.

How many supply teachers have been used in each of the years from 2012 to date?

C.

How many days work have supply teachers done in each of the years from 2012 to date?

D.

Are there schools which rely more on supply teachers than the average? Which are the top three? Can you separate out the cost/how many supply teachers/days worked for each of the top three?

E.

Under what criteria are supply teachers used? Please supply any policy/guidance notes.

Response

A, B, C, D.

The information requested can be found in tables 1 and 2 on the document below. For administrative and accounting purposes, supply teachers are paid by the States payroll function and the costs are recharged to schools at a flat rate of £230 per day (£220 in 2012 and 2013). The information provided in the tables is the annual supply recharge cost for each school. Schools may receive a refund from ESC for some supply costs (for example for long term sickness cover or where a teacher is working in an advisory or moderation capacity for ESC), however these refunds have not been included in the figures.

 Download supply teacher recharge information (size 88kb)

It should be noted that the use of supply teachers varies across schools, depending on the needs and context of the school. Generally, supply teachers are used to cover for teachers who may be absent due to ill health, participation in service training or management duties. This also includes cover for Newly Qualified Teachers (NQTs), who are released for half a day per week in addition to regular professional development time (schools with higher numbers of NQTs may therefore incur higher supply costs).

Schools may make arrangements to cover such absences in different ways. Some schools may utilise a supply teacher, while others employ permanent staff to provide cover. For this reason, comparisons between schools are not straightforward.

Attention should be paid to the relative size of each school when reading the tables. The number of children at each school (including nursery provisions) has been included to aid comparisons.

E.

Each school is free to determine how it might utilise supply cover. The policy below “Working with Supply Teachers” deals with the recruitment and quality aspects of using supply teachers.

Download working with supply teachers policy (size 290kb)