Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 26 September to Question 45468, what recent steps his Department has taken to assess trends in the levels of vacancy rates in the school support staff workforce.

The Department does not collect support staff vacancy numbers as part of the school workforce census, nor does it monitor vacancies within schools.

The Department committed to help schools with their recruitment, use and training of teaching assistants in the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision Green Paper, and refresh of the school resource management guidance. The Department will work with schools to understand how best we can help.

The Department does not have responsibility for pay, nor a role in pay negotiations. Employers have the freedom to make their own decisions according to their circumstances.

The National Joint Council for local government (NJC) has made the following one-year pay offer for 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023, for support staff, with pay to be backdated to 1 April 2022:

• with effect from 1 April 2022, an increase of £1,925 on all NJC pay points 1 and above
• with effect from 1 April 2022, an increase of 4.04 per cent on all allowances
• with effect from 1 April 2023, an increase of one day to all employees’ annual leave entitlement
• with effect from 1 April 2023, the deletion of pay point 1 from the NJC pay spine.