NEU report - Stop the Agency Rip Off

A groundbreaking new report from the National Education Union shows that teacher supply agencies are making huge profits from the exceptional sums of public money they receive from schools, while supply teachers themselves are being routinely paid below national pay scales and denied access to the Teachers' Pension Scheme.

The report shows:

• In the financial year 2022-23, schools spent £1.25 billion on supply teaching, more than 80 per cent of which went to agencies.
• Agency markups often exceed 90 per cent, with supply teachers receiving as little as £110 per day, despite schools paying an average of over £200 daily for a supply teacher.
• A small number of large agencies dominate the market, reporting dramatic increases in gross profits and accounting for as much as 50 per cent of all supply agency spending in England.
• Finder's fees charged by agencies – amounting to thousands of pounds – can act as a barrier to permanent employment in an era of stretched school budgets.

Given the diversion of public funds away from the classroom towards corporate profits at a time of squeezed school budgets, the Government needs to act now to stop the agency rip off.

Commenting on the report, Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, said:

"The Government has talked up the questionable idea that schools can find efficiency savings themselves yet seems content to allow the most extraordinary inefficiencies imaginable in the provision of supply teachers by agencies. Agencies are profiteering from the crisis in schools at the expense of supply teachers and school budgets.

"Supply teachers are suffering the consequences through low pay, exploitation and lack of access to institutional pension schemes. This is the moment to enforce national pay rates for all supply teachers and to bring stability through the creation of a national supply register. It cannot be right that exceptional sums of public money are flowing towards agencies that charge schools huge fees.

"It is well within the power of government to bring this corporate circus under control and to stop the agency rip-off."

Editor's Note

The report, which is attached, will be available at this link once the embargo lifts: https://neu.org.uk/latest/library/stop-agency-rip

Recommendations from the report:

1. De-marketisation of the supply system: government should phase out the dominance of commercial agencies in the supply sector. This could be achieved through investment in non-commercial operators, whether nationally managed, local authority run or employer based.

2. Fair pay and pensions: the government must mandate that all supply staff are paid according to the national pay scale and have access to the TPS or other relevant pension funds, such as the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS). Doing so would prevent downward pressure on staff remuneration through wasteful agency competition.

3. Publicly managed supply registers: the government should establish a national supply register with an easy-to-use online platform, which could be provided by either commercial or non-commercial operators.

4. Fair funding and equitable efficiencies for schools: by reducing supply spending the government can increase funding to schools. This would help mitigate cost pressures on schools and mean that public funds are spent in the classroom rather than on supply agency profits.