Recommendation 2

The Department has no clear or coherent approach bringing together its various initiatives on teacher recruitment and retention. In 2024–25, the Department had a £700 million package, excluding pay and pensions, for recruitment and retention initiatives which the Department has allocated in a way to make as much progress as possible. This includes bursaries and scholarships to recruit teachers in particular subjects (£233 million budget in 2024–25), and a two-year support package for newly qualified teachers (£131 million budget in 2024–25). It has undertaken some evaluation of its recruitment and retention initiatives, but it has still to undertake a full evaluation, including non-financial initiatives despite a recommendation by a previous Public Accounts Committee in 2016. The Department has limited evidence on the effectiveness of initiatives to improve workload or wellbeing, despite these being common reasons for teachers leaving. Given these gaps, and a lack of targets (beyond those for those starting teacher training), the Department cannot make fully informed decisions on where best to focus resources and justify funding pots. More widely, the Department has started some cross-sector thinking, as well as value for money analysis. This has been used to stop, for example, international relocation payments for trainees. recommendation The Department should develop a whole-system strategy to help frame how it will recruit and retain school and college teachers. This should be based on a fuller evidence base, establish the preferred balance between recruitment and retention initiatives; set appropriate targets for those joining teaching through different routes; and include value for money analysis of different initiatives.