Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 17
38th Report - Increasing teacher numbers: Secondary and further education
Published 9 Jul 2025
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee Increasing teacher numbers: Secondary and further education All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
The Department has overseen further education colleges since July 2016 with further education colleges reclassified into the public sector in November 2022. Its further education workforce data collection started in 2020, and while this was able to cover 94% of colleges in 2022–23, this compares to 99.7% of schools providing the Department with workforce data. As such, the Department must make broad assumptions as part of its further education workforce model which it uses to project the number of teachers needed. It has assessed 60% of assumptions in its model as having limited or no underlying evidence.45 40 Qq 6, 8-10, 13, 45; Targeted retention incentive for FE teachers: data as of 5 May 2025 - GOV.UK 41 Qq 12, 44 42 Q 7 43 ITN0001, Written evidence submitted by the Construction Industry Training Board; ITN0007, Written evidence submitted by Education and Training Foundation 44 ITN0014, Written evidence submitted by the Association of Colleges 45 C&AG’s Report, paras 10, 1.20 15 2 Initiatives and incentives to improve teacher recruitment and retention Teachers’ working environment and conditions
From: Public Accounts Committee, 38th Report - Increasing teacher numbers: Secondary and further education (HC 825), 9 July 2025
Government response
Latest Treasury Minutes progress report to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Thirty-eighth Report of Session 2024-26
The government responded to the whole report on 4 June 2026 (deadline 9 September 2025).
Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Thirty-eighth report from Session 2024-26
Published 15 October 2025.
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government states that it agrees with each of the Committee's recommendations on increasing secondary and further education teacher numbers, and gives target implementation dates between November 2025 and December 2026.
- On the pledge of 6,500 additional teachers, the department "will set out more detail" in a published delivery plan covering the definition of the pledge, tracking of progress, progress to date and the levers it will use, including recruitment and retention.
- On a whole-system strategy, it points to upcoming publications (the Schools White Paper, the 6,500 delivery plan and the post-16 education and skills strategy) and says it is "embedding value for money analysis" into major initiatives.
- On further education, it commits to update the Committee "every 6 months" on progress in recruiting and retaining FE teachers, with a first step being the 6,500 delivery plan.
- On behaviour hubs, it says "further rollout and funding are subject to spending review outcomes and evaluation findings".