Recommendation 11

In 2016, the previous Public Accounts Committee recommended that the Department should undertake a full evaluation of all its recruitment and retention initiatives to understand what works, including 18 Q 62; C&AG’s Report, para 2.38 19 Qq 22, 62 20 C&AG’s Report, para 2.2 21 Q 14; C&AG’s Report, paras 2.8-2.9, 2.11-2.12, 2.38, Figure 16 22 C&AG’s Report, paras 2.8, 2.14, 2.19 23 Q 14 24 Qq 18, 21; Letter from the Department for Education to the Committee, 2 June 2025 12 those not providing a financial incentive.25 The Department accepted the recommendation and, while it has undertaken some evaluation, it has yet to undertake a full evaluation which includes non-financial incentives and all those initiatives available to further education colleges. The Department recognised that for further education initiatives, its evaluation activity was less mature. The Department stressed that it did not want to spend public money “on things that do not work”, and that it had used evidence to discontinue some schemes such as international relocation payments for trainee teachers. It intends to use the analysis of school related financial recruitment incentives to help decide where to direct funding. It plans to expand this analysis to include retention initiatives such as flexible working, and the newer further education initiatives.26