£62m cost of supply teachers equates to a new teacher in every school, says TPA

Monday, 22 February 2021 00:01

With the expected announcement of the roadmap for the return to schools, the TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) has revealed that the annual cost of supply teachers equates to paying a newly qualified teacher in every secondary school. The TPA research pulls together large datasets on secondary school spending and pupil attainment to explore national trends in school budgets since 2009-10. For example, the total cost of supply teachers in 2017-18 was £61.8 million, the equivalent of...Request free trial

The TPA research pulls together large datasets on secondary school spending and pupil attainment to explore national trends in school budgets since 2009-10. For example, the total cost of supply teachers in 2017-18 was £61.8 million, the equivalent of £21,472 per school, which equates to the starting salary of a new teacher that year. This is a significant decrease from the previous decade, where the total spent on supply teachers was £293 million in non-academy secondary schools alone.

The research also discovered that free schools (first introduced in 2010) performed better than academies and maintained schools in taking a higher proportion of disadvantaged pupils. Free schools’ progress 8 number, which gauges a pupil’s improvement between key stage 2 and 4, was also 0.32 points better than maintained schools’ performance.

Table: average progress 8 measure, average income per pupil, and proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals in academies, maintained, and free schools, 2017-18

School type	Progress 8	Average income per pupil (£)	Proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals (%)
Academies	0.024	6,093	12.9
Maintained schools	-0.054	6,035	14.6
Free schools	0.269	8,093	15.5

Click here to see your local secondary school data


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Key Findings:

Spending on supply teachers in English secondary schools in 2017-18 was £61.8 million, or £21,472 per school. This is a substantial decline from 2009-10 – the first year such data was available – when the total was £293 million in non-academy secondary schools alone.
Schools with more than 30 per cent of pupils on free school meals (comprising 184 schools) spent less on supply teachers compared to 2009-10, averaging at £16,702. This compares to £21,805 for schools with less than 30 per cent of pupils on free school meals.
The average income per pupil in schools with more than 30 per cent of pupils on free school meals was £7,801. At the remaining schools, it was £6,033. The average income per pupil in maintained, free schools and academies was £6,035, £8,093 and £6,093 respectively.
The proportion of pupils on free school meals in maintained, free schools and academies was 14.6 per cent, 15.5 per cent and 12.9 per cent respectively.
Free schools perform better compared to maintained and academy schools. Maintained schools’ progress 8 measure was -0.05, compared to 0.27 in free schools and 0.02 in academies.
This means that free schools teach a higher proportion of disadvantaged pupils, receiving higher income per pupil, while achieving higher attainment.

“This research shows that the range of schools and their outcomes has dramatically broadened since the last decade.

“It’s promising that the amount spent on supply teachers has massively decreased, and free schools are delivering quality education for more disadvantaged pupils, but there is still more work to be done to make our education system top of the class.

“Ministers should continue giving headteachers the freedom they need to run schools, making them accountable to parents not bureaucrats in Whitehall.”