Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many support staff, expressed as full-time equivalents, were employed in English primary, secondary and special state schools, in (1) 2007–8, (2) 2011–12, and (3) 2015–16, or if 2015–16 data are not yet available, 2014–15.

The information requested is publicly available.

The Department collects information on all school staff employed by state funded schools each year in the November School Workforce Census. The results of each census are published annually. The latest information is for November 2015 and was published in June 2016 in the ‘School Workforce in England: November 2015’ statistical release. This is available online at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/school-workforce-in-england-november-2015

Time series statistics (2005 to 2015) showing the number of full-time equivalent teachers, teaching assistants, and other school staff working in primary, secondary and special schools are published in Table 1 of the above statistical release.

Table 3a of the release shows the number of full-time equivalent teachers working in local authority maintained schools and separately in academy and free schools in the primary, secondary and special school phases. Similar information for the number of full-time equivalent teaching assistants, and other school staff working in local authority maintained schools and separately in academy and free schools is available in Table 3b.

The detailed breakdown of the full-time equivalent staffing numbers in 2014 (shown separately for local authority maintained schools and academy and free schools) is available in Tables 1-3 of the previous year’s statistical release. This is available online at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/school-workforce-in-england-november-2014