FOI request confirms council spent over £13 million on supply teachers last year

Nicholas Thomas, local democracy reporter

A council has confirmed it spent more than £13 million on supply staff in its schools last year.

Two Caerphilly County Borough Council primary schools each spent roughly £500,000 on agency staff to cover teachers and other workers who were absent.

The cost for agency supply staff was more than £1m at the council’s only special school for pupils with additional learning needs.

The figures, published following a Freedom of Information Act request, come shortly after councillors agreed to draw down £6m from balances to cover an overspend last year in the county borough’s schools.

The authority is also exploring other measures to shore up finances in education – although school budgets are ring-fenced.

Confident

The council said it was “confident” its headteachers were able to manage “appropriate” staffing levels.

Some 650 teachers were employed in the county borough last year, according to Welsh Government figures.

The council spokesperson said the local authority is responsible for 86 schools and each “will have different reasons for requiring agency support”.

This could include support for individual pupils, cover for staff who are sick or on maternity leave, or for “short-term interventions and projects”.

But the council did not respond directly to a question asking why the spending on agency supply staff was a sizeable £13.7m in the 2023/24 financial year.

Issues

The Local Democracy Reporting Service also asked whether there are any specific issues with recruitment and retention of school staff, or with sickness rates.

The council did not offer a specific response to those questions either, with the spokesperson explaining the authority “does not hold a breakdown of this information centrally”.

Instead, the spokesperson said the council is “confident that headteachers are working hard to ensure that appropriate staffing levels are in place to ensure their schools have sufficient resources available to support the needs of pupils”.

However, recent council meetings have shone a light on the difficulties some schools are finding in balancing their books.

The local authority is currently scrambling to redress unbalanced budgets at several individual schools via three-year “recovery plans” designed to fix any deficits.

Senior councillors were told in July that 15 primary schools were carrying forward a total deficit of £559,000 and six secondary schools were carrying forward a combined £2.9m deficit as of the end of March this year.

Other money-saving measures mooted by the council include a current public consultation on proposed changes to its schools transport policy, which could lead to longer walks to school for more pupils.

It is estimated the changes could save £1.5m, but some pupils could face walking up to three miles to school each morning, under the proposals.