BBC News Online: Education

Supply agencies to be regulated

Agencies have filled gaps during teacher shortages

The government has indicated that it wants a voluntary regulation scheme for supply agencies.

This could see agencies receiving "quality marks" or a system of stars to show they have achieved an approved set of standards.

The details have yet to be decided, but it is expected that there will be three main areas under which agencies will be assessed:

• recruitment: such as how they check references and select staff
  
• management: the feedback supplied to staff and addressing training and development needs
  
• standards of service to schools

The government would play a leading part in setting these criteria and how agencies would be assessed.

But it is not known yet whether the scheme would be run directly by the Department for Education, or whether it would operate with another commercial partner.

Teacher agencies can provide schools with staff to cover for short and long-term absences, while schools seek to recruit full-time teachers.

The shortage of teachers which has troubled many schools in the past year has seen a greater reliance on agencies, which have themselves struggled to recruit enough teachers to meet the demand.

Supply agencies have been actively recruiting overseas as well as within the United Kingdom, with teachers being hired in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.