The government has finally committed to publishing the full details of how it will deliver on its pledge for 6,500 more teachers – a year and a half after being elected.
The House of Commons public accounts committee (PAC) said in June that it remained “unclear” how the Department for Education would honour its pledge or measure its progress, or the impact this would have on resolving workforce shortages.
Now, in its response to the report, the government has said that the DfE will publish a full delivery plan by December.
“This will include: the definition of the pledge, how the department will track progress over the duration of this Parliament, progress to date, and the levers it will use to deliver the pledge (including how it will focus on both recruitment and retention).”
The response adds that the DfE has “made strong initial progress” on recruitment. The workforce grew by 2,346 full-time employees between 2023-24 and 2024-25 in secondary and special schools – schools “where they are needed most”.
The government said it is seeing “positive signs” that the 5.5 per cent and 4 per cent pay rises over the past two years are “starting to deliver”.
Repeated criticism
The DfE has come under repeated criticism for failing to publish details of the pledge, which formed a part of Labour’s 2024 election manifesto. It initially promised 6,500 “expert teachers in key subjects” as one of its six “first steps for change”.
Over the summer, the government revealed that primary teachers would not be included in the targets. Schools Week then revealed that not all of the teachers will be “new”.
Instead, the target will reflect how much the workforce has grown overall – meaning it will include increases in retention rates.
The government said it agrees with all six of the PAC’s recommendations and is providing implementation dates for them. Among the recommendations was for the DfE to work with schools to understand why those in deprived areas have bigger workforce challenges.
The government said it will “continue to invest in evaluation and understanding of the workforce” and set an implementation date of August next year.
The PAC report also recommended that the DfE develops a “whole-system strategy” for recruitment and retention, saying it had “no clear or coherent approach bringing together its various initiatives” for the two.
The government responded that it is now investing in analysing policies to understand their impact, and “continues to review the balance between recruitment and retention”.
Another recommendation was for the DfE to “work to better understand why teachers leave” and better support schools in addressing these factors.
The schools white paper and the 6,500 teacher plan will provide the detail on this.
I’m pleased to read there might finally be a focus on retention. In my opinion the best way to achieve this would be an increase in protected PPA time to 20%. 10% is no where near enough. Teachers effectively get 6-7 mins of PPA time for every hour of teaching. What other profession require staff to give 4-5 “presentations” each day (often to disinterested audiences) with only 6-7 mins to plan each one? And, that’s before time spent marking/following up. I appreciate 20% PPA cannot be achieved overnight but a commitment to do so, increasing by 4% (1 hour a fortnight) each year for five years, would help prevent burnout and the subsequent loss of teachers.
PS: I have been teaching 30+ years and still love teaching my students!
So Labour included this in its manifesto and has been in power for over 12 months – and it STILL needs to wait until December to publish its “plan”!? And the figures relate to “the workforce”: are these all teachers or do the figures include Teaching Assistants and other support staff?
There isn’t a teacher shortage but a retention issue. Experienced teachers are being pushed out for cheaper ECTs due to budget constraints. Schools are becoming unmanageable to work in and are a toxic environment for our children to be ‘learning’ in, as money comes before children’s needs.