Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how her Department collects the vacancy rates of individual (a) maintained schools and (b) academies.

The number of full-time vacant teaching posts in state funded schools (both maintained schools and academy schools) in England is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/school-workforce-in-england-november-2014

The information is provided by schools as part of the annual School Workforce Census which is carried out in November each year. As part of this census, all state funded schools (maintained schools and academies) in England provide to the Department the number of vacant teaching posts that exist in November. The data is published in the following June.

The following vacant posts, for all grades of teacher (classroom teacher to head teacher), should be reported by the school:

• Posts that are either vacant or are filled by a teacher on a contract of less than a term’s duration,

• Vacancies that the school has tried to fill but which were not filled on the November census day,

• Vacancies where an appointment has been made but the appointee was not in post on the census day.

  The following are excluded:

• Vacancies that did not become vacant until after the census day, for example, where a teacher has resigned but is serving notice.

The vacancy rate is then calculated as the ratio of the number of vacant posts to the number of teaching posts.