Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Joining us today from the General Teaching Council for Northern Ireland (GTCNI) are: Ian Gallagher, the interim CEO / Registrar; Mary Jackson, head of corporate services; and Julie-Anne Stevenson, head of professional standards. I have been known to get job titles wrong, so please feel free to correct me. Thank you for your time today and for coming to give evidence on the Bill, and thank you for the briefing paper that you provided. I will hand over to you for any initial remarks or if you just want to walk through the Bill with any clause-by-clause reflections. I ask that that be for up to 10 minutes, and then we will move into questions and answers.

Mr Ian Gallagher (General Teaching Council for Northern Ireland): Thank you very much, Chair and members. I will begin by thanking the Committee for the opportunity to provide a background on GTCNI's roles and functions in the context of the General Teaching Council Bill. As you will know, GTCNI was established under the Education (Northern Ireland) Order 1998 as the professional body for teachers in Northern Ireland. As a non-departmental public body (NDPB) of the Department of Education, GTCNI has a statutory remit to create and maintain a register of teachers eligible to teach in grant-aided schools, to provide regulatory functions and to provide advice to the Department and employing authorities on professional matters. There are currently over 28,500 teachers active on GTCNI's register of teachers.

As you are aware, GTCNI has, for a number of years, struggled to discharge its functions effectively. The independent board effectiveness review of 2021 concluded that the leadership council or board, which consisted of 33 members representing the teaching profession, was dysfunctional, deeply flawed and irredeemably divided. The then Education Minister accepted the review's recommendations and announced in the Assembly in 2021 that she would stand down the council immediately and that DE would bring forward legislation to dissolve GTCNI, but that, in the meantime, GTCNI would come under direct departmental oversight. At that stage, DE introduced a series of interim oversight and governance arrangements to ensure that robust and proportionate performance monitoring and accountability arrangements remained in place. Those arrangements also made sure that staff in the GTCNI could receive continuing support and guidance for their ongoing work. Previous special measures were put in place in November 2019, and they were subsumed into the new governance and oversight arrangements.

Since June 2022, a new GTCNI senior management team (SMT) emerged with considerable public-sector career experience. I was appointed in June of that year, and Mary, to my right, joined in September. As a DE employee, I am designated GTCNI's accounting officer by DE's accounting officer. I am personally responsible for safeguarding the public funds that are under my control and for the day-to-day operation and management of GTCNI .

Since 2022, we have worked to address the numerous governance, staffing and operational challenges which had necessitated the Department's intervening. A new SMT has successfully led, revitalised and transformed GTCNI. Highlights have included developing, implementing and introducing in April 2023 a new teacher registration system, in just over seven months from contract award. That project had failed to progress for the previous five years. We have published five sets of unqualified annual reports and accounts, successfully addressed 45 historic audit recommendations, developed and implemented best practice HR policies, including GTCNI's first performance management system, and addressed information management weaknesses by developing a suite of data protection-related policies and delivering staff training.

At the same time as all of that, we have simultaneously complied with all governance and other annual and periodic returns that need to be made to the Department, including budgeting and financial areas, corporate risk management and corporate and business plans. That is all in accordance with normal NDPD requirements, and all with just 15 members of staff. DE recognised that progress and stated in December 2024:

Chair and members, that sets the scene. I turn now to consider GTCNI's role under the various clauses in the new legislation. I will hand over to Julie-Anne first.

Ms Julie-Anne Stevenson (General Teaching Council for Northern Ireland): Clause 7 is titled "Provisional Registration". It will allow GTCNI to provisionally register persons whose qualifications have minor deficiencies when viewed against GTCNI's qualification requirements. Such persons will be able to work as teachers for a stipulated period, during which time they must provide evidence that they have remedied the identified deficits before they can receive full registration. That approach will help to reduce barriers to entering the teaching profession.

Clause 8 covers further training. It will require teachers to periodically re-validate their professional standing, similar to other professions, by evidencing their continued participation in teacher professional learning. GTCNI notes that regulations and commencement orders for clauses 7 and 8 will only be brought forward following appropriate consultation with the teaching profession and key stakeholders. Along with education stakeholders and in consultation with the profession, GTCNI should clearly have a role in ensuring that joined-up strategic development occurs in relation to new teacher induction, early professional development and continuing professional development, all of which will potentially underpin teachers' career progression into leadership pathways in school settings. In the future, GTCNI's vision is to offer a scheme of bursaries to recognise and acknowledge best practice and innovation in the profession, from initial teacher education through to leadership roles in consultation with education stakeholders.

Clause 9 is titled "Rules relating to registration". As a keeper of the register, GTCNI delivers a protective/supportive regulation function to safeguard children and teachers in education through our approval of qualifications, assessment and admittance to the register processes. The legislative change clarifies that the Department can set out which matters it considers must be included in GTCNI’s registration rules, but, in essence, it still provides GTCNI with a large degree of freedom to write its rules in collaboration or consultation with stakeholders.

In the absence of a functioning board or council, it is currently difficult for GTCNI to justify stepping away from its established, council-approved rules, despite an evolving initial teacher education (ITE) qualifications landscape. For example, you have recently heard concerns raised about the international postgraduate certificate in education (iPGCE) and international qualified teacher status (iQTS) initial teacher education courses that are offered by a number of English providers and that lead to qualified teacher status (QTS). While acknowledging the need for flexibility of routes into teaching, that potentially could be seen to increase the risk of dilution of our quality standards. As GTCNI’s qualification rules stand, achievement of QTS allows entry onto our register, and we cannot deviate from that. When a functioning board or council is in place, GTCNI intends to review its qualification rules to ensure that standards are maintained whilst not introducing insurmountable barriers to entry.

As part of its statutory remit, GTCNI also provides advice to the Department and employing authorities on professional matters. That includes accrediting local ITE programmes and courses and developing a modern, fit-for-purpose teacher competencies framework. That can only be partially progressed for a limited period of time without a functioning board or council in place. Full accreditation and re-accreditation processes must be implemented to prevent delays in registering Northern Ireland graduate applicants.

I will now hand over to Mary.

Ms Mary Jackson (General Teaching Council for Northern Ireland): I turn to clause 10 on "Offences". The aim is to create a preventative barrier to the fraudulent representation of teaching qualifications, letters of professional standing, completion of induction and/or early professional development documents by an applicant to our register or to a register in another jurisdiction. While that relates to a small number of cases at this time, it would close another current weakness in our powers.

Clause 11 is titled "Disciplinary powers". GTCNI currently has limited powers regarding the sanctioning of teachers. It can either do effectively nothing or remove a teacher from the register. The latter power exists only in extremely limited circumstances, relying mainly on a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) barring order or notification from another teaching regulator. GTCNI cannot currently regulate the profession in the same way that neighbouring teaching councils in GB and Ireland can.

The Bill will create a framework that enables us to investigate allegations of unacceptable professional conduct or serious professional incompetence and to act where those allegations are upheld. On receipt of a referral, GTCNI will conduct an initial triage and make recommendations to either an interim suspension committee, if the referral concerned a high-risk child-safeguarding matter, or to an investigating committee. In due course, a hearing may then be held by a fitness-to-practice committee and, potentially, a fitness-to-practice appeal committee. The Bill will provide a power for registrants against whom a sanction is applied to also have the recourse of a right to appeal to the High Court.

All committees will have independent members, and no GTCNI board member or staff member will sit on any of those committees. During the regulatory process, the registrant about whom the referral has been received will have information on their rights to representation and be signposted to well-being and support resources.

While not involved in all decision-making stages of the regulatory process, it is envisaged that GTCNI will assure its integrity through the design and governance of documentation and procedures that will be subjected to external legal review and opinion and board agreement before implementation.

To conclude — you will be glad to hear — the Bill creates fit-for-purpose board and committee structures, and the Department proposes that members of the board and committees are appointed through a skills- and experience-based public appointments process. By addressing weaknesses in GTCNI’s current regulatory functions, the Bill enables GTCNI to establish committees, the membership of which will consist of non-board members, to consider misconduct and serious professional incompetence referrals from various sources, including members of the public. GTCNI will be able to impose a range of sanctions as determined by those committees. Those will include reprimands, conditional registration orders, suspension orders and prohibition orders.

While there is considerable work still to be done to come up with the practical procedures that the organisation will need to put in place, we believe that the changes address current areas of weakness for GTCNI or propose useful additions to our current powers, and we welcome them. We realise that much needs to be done and welcome the opportunity to continue to transform GTCNI into a fit-for-purpose professional body for teachers, as was always the intention. Thank you very much for your time.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you, all, for those opening remarks on the Bill.

My first question might be one for the Department. If so, we will just move on from it. There has been some initial discussion around the decision to, effectively, legislate to improve, enhance and reform the structures that we have rather than dissolve the GTCNI and replace it with a brand new body, as was initially suggested. There has been consultation work, business cases and value-for-money cases concerning that. Is that material available to be shared with the Committee to help us understand the thinking process behind how we arrived at this Bill and why options were considered or discounted? Can that be shared?

Mr Gallagher: Certainly, Chair. At the minute, providing that information is a question for the Department, because it led that process.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I thought that might be the case, but I wanted to check on that at this stage. I will not pursue that with you any further.

You are probably aware that we heard evidence from the teaching unions last week. They came out very clearly and said that the Bill was not fit-for-purpose because they did not think that, as drafted, it would create an independent regulatory body. They were concerned that it created a body that was still very much at the behest of the Department. They particularly highlighted some of the provisions in the Bill that allow the Department to make regulations that can require GTCNI to do potentially anything. I am looking at clause 9, as we do not know what the Department's intentions are there. What is your response to that? Does the Bill provide the structures to create an independent, fit-for-purpose regulatory body? Do you have any concerns about some of those things that you may be required to do that are not currently detailed, particularly to do with clause 9, if you do not mind speaking to it?

Ms Jackson: From a strategic perspective, education is a spectrum, and the GTCNI is part of that spectrum. The Department of Education is, in a way, at the head of the spectrum and answerable to the Minister.

The GTCNI cannot create rules for registration in isolation. There needs to be joined-up thinking with the Department for the Economy on what constitutes successful ITE in a higher education institution (HEI) in Northern Ireland and how that ITE is then quality-assured and what skill sets come out of it through to our teachers into our classrooms. The GTCNI cannot set the rules alone without giving due consideration to what is further back on the spectrum in respect of the outcomes for children and young people in an education setting.

It is correct, in a way, to say that we are tied to the Department in respect of what it would like to see in our regulations, but the regulations and, in particular, the qualification rules are set by the GTCNI in conjunction with its board. We currently operate according to the last set of those. They were approved in 2017, with some updates in 2019. We have not deviated from them apart from when it has been legislatively necessary. For example, we are no longer part of the EU, therefore we had to amend the wording of one of the rules slightly to reflect that. We have stuck with the rules because they are approved by the board of the GTCNI and need to be reviewed, and that needs to be done again.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Do you see any potential points of conflict that could emerge from the legislation? I think again of clause 9. If the Department makes regulations that require you to do something, and the board, when appointed, as the legislation sets it out, says that it does not think that a certain intervention in the regulatory space or to do with qualifications or teacher competencies is appropriate, is there not the potential for conflict?

Mr Gallagher: There is, Chair, absolutely, but when we have a fully functioning organisation again, including a board of members, those members will be responsible for setting the strategic direction for the organisation and everything that it does, in consultation with the key stakeholders, including the education family. We want to ensure that we create a fit-for-purpose professional body for teachers.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I understand your answer. I think that it is getting into some of the questions around appointments versus elections. If you have a proper fit-for-purpose board that can function and make decisions, it might navigate some of those points of conflict. However, what if there were a profound and unanimous view from the board that regulations that were being imposed on the council were not appropriate in the regulatory space? That is where there is concern from the unions about you not having the independence to say, "No, we are not going to do that". Am I reading the legislation as drafted correctly?

Mr Gallagher: That is the correct way of interpreting it. At this stage, we are not in that space, but I understand where the unions are coming from on that.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): We can pick up that question with the Department. We do not know what regulations it intends to bring.

I want to pick up on clause 11, with which schedule 1A is associated. It sets out much more extensive disciplinary powers. I do not dispute that your current state of affairs, where you can either do nothing or remove someone from the register, with nothing in between those options, is not an appropriate spectrum of powers to have. Therefore, I agree that there definitely needs to be an intervention in that space.

However, the framing of schedule 1A indicates that "regulations may" follow that create powers along those lines. Have you had any engagement with the Department on that or any reflections of how it potentially creates some uncertainty, in that we do not know whether everything in that schedule will come out of the regulations? Have you had engagement on that?

Mr Gallagher: Obviously, we are still at an early stage of the Bill and the whole process, but we have to think ahead. I think that a set of rules and regulations will come out. As you said, Chair, the current position is not sustainable, so we need to have some sort of framework by which we can regulate the profession properly. It happens in all the other teaching councils across these islands, and we hope to follow suit so that we have a similar system in place and a framework that allows us to regulate the profession appropriately.

Therefore, while there is much work still to be done on fleshing out the detail, at this stage, we will want to make sure that we are that fit-for-purpose professional body.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): That is another potential question to ask the Department about its clear intentions.

This is the last question from me. I imagine that other members will want to pick up on fees. I will not go down the route of asking whether teachers should or should not pay. I note that you did not reference clause 12. It is currently framed in such a way that the fee charge must cover the cost of running GTCNI and, potentially, could be higher than that. Based on your current operations and where you would like to get to, have you any sense of what that cost is likely to be? I ask that because you understand what things look like operationally.

Ms Jackson: The £44 fee was first lifted in 2007 and has remained unchanged, despite inflationary uplifts in all operating costs. It just about covers our current work profile of 15 members of staff and delivery of the services in our reduced remit. Based on a membership of around 28,500 people on the active register, that £44 will not cover any of the services or the widened remit that changes in the legislation intend to bring about, including the regulation and cost of setting up and running panels, maintaining lists of panels and their potential membership. It will not offer any wider review of qualifications, such as, for example, a more in-depth assessment of minor shortfalls that might lead someone to be able to be provisionally registered and to undertake and be mentored through a programme of shortfall make-up and to have qualifications measured and assessed when the application comes back in. To deliver all of those functions, we estimate that we will need an organisation of around 22 people initially. If you roughly apply the inflationary uplifts of the past 20 years to that £44, and say that inflation was, on average, 2·5% per year, you would be looking at a fee in the high 70s. If you said that it was 1·5% a year, you would be looking at a fee in the mid-50s. The £44 fee was set 20 years ago and has never been changed.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): You anticipate costs going up.

Ms Jackson: Yes.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I will leave others to cover whether they feel that teachers should or should not pay. Is there an appetite to use the powers in clause 12 to charge more than it costs to break even?

Ms Jackson: It is not for a governmental arm's-length body to make a surplus or any kind of profit from its activities. Our intention is to break even, as much as possible, whilst recognising the fact that we need to commit to the potential for future reinvestment in, for example, major asset replacement, teacher systems and our expansion of the register to cover those things that we talked about, such as provisional registration categories, student member categories or ways to capture continual professional development or teacher learning. All of that will cost money. It creates a bigger register with heavier charges and, potentially requires a higher number of staff.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): We can pick that up with the Department, because the bit that will be inserted by clause 12 suggests that you can charge a fee that is in excess of what is required for the service that you provide. It is there, but, again, it is perhaps one to pick up with the Department.

Mr Gallagher: It certainly would not be our intention to do that.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): It is helpful to hear that that is not your intention.

Ms Jackson: You will have seen that in other organisations when a major investment requirement is known to be coming up. To fund it across a number of years, they may well have a temporary or permanent uplift in a fee of some kind to generate the reserves that are required to meet those investment needs. However, it is not a surplus for the sake of surplus. It is done for an intended outcome.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): That is helpful. Perhaps questions on the rationale for the clause can be picked up with the Department. I will bring in the Deputy Chair. I ask members to indicate if they wish to ask a question.

Mr Sheehan: Do you accept that the GTCNI, as it will be constituted after the Bill is enacted, will not be an independent organisation?

Mr Gallagher: As the Bill stands, yes, we see that it would remain a body that is associated or linked to the Department of Education. That model of having a close relationship with the parent Department is similar to that of other teaching councils across these islands. However, with a new council or board membership structure in place, those members should be able to make independent decisions in that sense. We had the discussion about what would happen if that brought us into conflict with the Department and where would that take us. However, being able to get a council that represents the profession, with board members that can bring other skills to it, will, hopefully, put the organisation in a good place and enable it to deliver for teachers across the country.

Mr Sheehan: Are organisations in other jurisdictions in these islands reflective of the teaching profession to a greater or lesser extent?

Mr Gallagher: From memory, in Scotland and Ireland, all the members are from the teaching profession. I cannot remember about Wales. I think that they are Welsh Government appointments, so at least half of the members are teachers.

Ms Jackson: It has 13 types of categories on its register, so it is not just teachers. The Welsh model is slightly different in that.

Mr Sheehan: One argument that the unions will put forward is that it will not be independent or reflective of the teaching profession, so why should the teaching profession fund it?

Ms Jackson: As to whether it will be reflective of the teaching profession, if you look at the Commissioner for Public Appointments for Northern Ireland (CPANI) public appointment processes, you will see that it is most likely — in fact, very likely — that 50% of the membership will be representative of the profession. You need to ensure that the organisation, which will be an arm's-length body that is independent in its daily operations but always accountable to its sponsor Department and Minister for that Department — there is no getting away from that — represents the best skill set required to represent the interests of the profession. That will include teachers, but it may also include experts in the fields of law or finance, and perhaps some of those skills need to be brought to bear on a board to ensure that there is balance in reviewing potentially tough decisions that have to be made on future investment.

Mr Sheehan: There is absolutely no argument against that. Particularly when it comes to disciplinary proceedings, you need expertise in that field, and in the field of HR and so on. However, I come back to my question: if it is not representative of teachers and not independent, why should they pay for it?

Ms Jackson: It depends on your definition of independence, because all arm's-length bodies that deliver services for Departments are accountable to but independent of the Departments, and they operate with their own boards and management structures.

Mr Sheehan: I understand that, but that is why my first question was about whether it will be independent, and the answer was no.

Ms Jackson: That is the degree of independence, and that is the set-up of boards across NDPBs in the public sector in Northern Ireland. If you were to move down the Executive agency route, there is less independence. The closer you go to your sponsor Department, the less independence and autonomy there is. The point of having a board of directors is that it represents the interests of the profession and brings to bear the other areas of expertise that help it to make decisions. It will be up to the teaching profession, employing authorities and individual schools to determine how to ensure, in accordance with the CPANI public appointment processes, that every sector is represented on the board in some way or another.

Mr Sheehan: OK, fair enough.

I want to move on to another issue, and I do not have a lot of time. I have made representations on behalf of a number of teachers who qualified in the South and have had difficulty registering in the North. What are the obstacles? My understanding is that teacher training in the South is well regulated and highly regarded.

Ms Jackson: We anticipated that question, so I will hand over to Ian.

Mr Gallagher: Absolutely. Pat, if you do not mind, I will take you back very briefly to your question about fees and independence. You asked why teachers should pay. We are hoping and planning for GTCNI to be the professional body for teachers, so it is almost like a professional fee that they are paying to be part of that professional body for the teaching profession.

I turn to your question about applicants from Ireland. Between 2020 and 2026, the GTCNI received 69 applications from people who had done their initial teacher education training in Ireland. Of those, 56 were accepted, and 13 were declined. I do not want to go into the specifics, but, just to let you know, about a third of those who were declined did not have an initial teacher education qualification, so they did not met our criteria, and that is OK.

Mr Sheehan: I have no difficulty with that. I am talking about students who qualify with a teaching degree — the equivalent of a PGCE or whatever it is.

Mr Gallagher: A number of them who have applied to us — I presume that these are the ones who you are referring to — may not have met our requirements in full: for example, they did not have the equivalent of a GCSE in either maths or science, which is required for certain roles. With the other third who were declined, there were shortfalls in their initial training.

Mr Sheehan: Let me stop you on that point about GCSE maths or science. Are you saying that, if a teacher is qualified to teach French and Italian, for example, but they do not have maths or science at the equivalent of GCSE, they cannot be registered?

Mr Gallagher: That is currently in our qualification rules. The board adopted and approved that position when it brought in the qualification rules.

Mr Sheehan: Just clarify this for me: could a student here get a PGCE without having those GCSEs? My understanding is that they could not, certainly not without maths anyway.

Ms Stevenson: They would not be entered on.

Mr Sheehan: Right, OK.

Ms Jackson: That is maybe a wider question than just for GTCNI. You have to go back and look at the Northern Ireland standard for a certificate of education. It talks about GCSE at grade C across English, maths etc as a minimum standard. That is outside of GTCNI, which is why it is reflected within GTCNI. If that changes at the national level, the qualification rules would obviously be adapted.

Mr Gallagher: Pat, we understand that clause 7 provides for the category of provisional registration. If that is enacted in the way that it is written in the Bill, it may enable teachers who have such shortfalls in qualifications to apply with us and then get the evidence required over a stipulated period to enable them to achieve full registration. Currently, that is not possible.

Ms Jackson: We do not have the capacity.

Mr Sheehan: For argument's sake, if someone from the South applied and did not have the equivalent of GCSE maths, they could be provisionally registered and told, "Listen, go away and do GCSE maths, and, in a year's time or two years' time —".

Mr Gallagher: "Come back to us".

Mr Sheehan: Yes. Could they teach in the meantime?

Mr Gallagher: No, because they would not be able to be admitted to our register, as our rules stand. If that clause is enacted —.

Mr Sheehan: What would the effect of provisional registration be then?

Mr Gallagher: They will have had some sort of shortfall in meeting our requirements for full registration, and we are trying to give them the opportunity to —.

Mr Sheehan: It would not make any material difference to their ability to teach in the North.

Mr Gallagher: No. They would have provisional registration and be able to teach.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I would like to clarify that, because I am not sure that I have followed it. The current provision is that someone can go away and get the qualifications but they cannot teach in the meantime. However, under the new provision, if they were provisionally registered, they could be permitted to teach while acquiring the required qualifications.

Mr Gallagher: Yes.

Ms Jackson: Yes, with accepted shortfalls. There is a list of accepted shortfalls. At the moment, the absence of GCSE maths is not an accepted shortfall because of the national standard.

Mr Gallagher: At the minute, if somebody who has a shortfall in maths or science, which was the example given, went away and got that qualification and came back to us, we would absolutely consider their application. It is likely that they would be entered on to our register, subject to their meeting all of our other suitability checks.

Ms Stevenson: The shortfall could be not having gone into a school for a placement and having that part signed off. They are expected to do so many hours, and doing so would close that deviation for them.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I am not sure that I have followed that 100%. Other members may want to pick up on that, and perhaps we can revisit it. Actually, maybe it would be good to get it cleared up now. Effectively, you are saying that provisional registration allows people, in theory, to go away to make up the difference that they need to in their qualifications but that there are some minimum standards that you can never deviate from, GCSE maths being one.

Ms Jackson: Currently, because of —.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Will this legislation change that, or is that set at a GB level?

Ms Jackson: It is set at a higher level than us, but, if they had a shortfall in the hours of teaching that are required as part of their initial qualification, we could provisionally register them and they could make up that shortfall of hours by taking on a role in a school. We would then register that the shortfall had been made up, and we would move them from provisional to full registration. For minor shortfalls and smaller things, not the larger degree-type issues, we could say to them, "We can let you on to the register, and you can take up a role in that school. Over the next six months or eight months or one academic year, we expect the shortfall to be made up, and we expect that to be mentored and witnessed in your school". We would then assess that and move them from provisional to full registration. Again, that is an effort to reduce barriers to entry.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Parity is important here.

Ms Jackson: Yes.

Mr Sheehan: One final question: is it possible to obtain a teaching qualification in the South without the equivalent of maths GCSE?

Ms Jackson: I would have to check that.

Mr Gallagher: I do not know the answer to that.

Mr Sheehan: You say that people who do not have the equivalent cannot get on to the register here even though they have a teaching qualification.

Ms Stevenson: There are different levels when it comes to the leaving certificate for maths and English, and it is about what equates over.

Ms Jackson: If somebody passed maths, that might fall below the minimum acceptable standard in Northern Ireland, but, if they did the higher level in maths, that may meet our minimum standard on the grade-C GCSE maths equivalency. That would then transfer and be acceptable. Every case has to be assessed individually. There is no blanket approval for applicants from the South. There is a case-by-case assessment of what they have done.

Mr Sheehan: Thanks.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): OK. That may need to be revisited.

Mr Burrows: Thank you. That was really informative. Sorry, I am having a couple of IT issues today: I seem to be dropping in and out of reception.

First, on the issue of fees, there is a feeling that teachers are paying for something that they do not get anything back from. Do you have any view on why teachers should pay a fee for that?

Mr Gallagher: Jon, in the past number of years, since I have been in the organisation, I have had a lot of work to do to resolve and clear up issues. There have been highlights in what we have successfully implemented. The new teachers' registration system is one example of how we, as an organisation, try to provide some benefit to the teaching community and wider workforce. We realise that it will take time. We realise that our regulatory powers are very limited at the moment. Hopefully, this legislation will help fix that.

Coming back to a question that was asked earlier about GTCNI being the professional body for teachers, we hope that that is what it will be, reshaped and reborn. However, it takes money to cover the costs of all that we do, so we hope that, in due course, teachers will be happy to pay the membership fee to GTCNI every year.

Mr Burrows: I put myself in their shoes. If I had been paying a subscription to something for the past number of years and felt that I was not getting anything, and then I was told, "It'll be better now. Keep paying", there might be a reservoir of distrust.

I move on to a question around credibility. Given that the purpose of the Bill is to fix the long-standing governance and accountability failures in GTCNI, what assurances can you give the Committee that the council is capable of delivering the cultural and organisational change that the legislation requires?

Mr Gallagher: Jon, certainly, the current senior management team in GTCNI has evened the keel of the organisation. We have sorted out the initial governance difficulties and issues that had to be resolved when I took up post almost four years ago. It has taken us a long time to get there — longer than I had hoped — but we have got there. We are now in the position to go forward and, hopefully, put in place the legislation, and all the other rules etc below that, that will make it a professional body that teachers can be proud to be a part of. It will take time: we realise that. We are very limited in that, at the moment, we are only 15 staff. We are doing our best. Hopefully, even before the legislation comes in, we will get some comms out to teachers and the wider profession to try to begin to re-engage with them ahead of a new, revamped organisation coming along in due course.

Mr Burrows: You accept that there is a real need to build trust around credibility and that there has to be a change of culture.

Mr Gallagher: Absolutely.

Mr Burrows: This is my final question. Why does it take so long to register teachers who return to Northern Ireland from other parts of the United Kingdom?

Mr Gallagher: I am not aware of that being an issue. It is on our website: we tell applicants that the process for them to get registered will take up to six weeks from when they provide all the required information and pay the £44 registration fee. We do not think that that is a very long time. Jon, some applicants forget to send us their initial teaching qualification. Without that, we cannot do our checks to ensure that they have received the qualification. Those applicants may think that they have provided it, but we know that they have not, and we will have contacted them about that. Until that issue is resolved, we cannot progress their application. By and large, however, I am not aware of any applications that take longer to process than they should.

Mr Burrows: Is that measured? Do you have performance management data for that?

Mr Gallagher: We do. We consistently register applicants, particularly applicants from the rest of the UK, within five weeks of them getting all the information to us.

Mr Burrows: OK. I may ask for that data in a question for written answer to the Minister, but I appreciate your answers. Thank you.

Mr Brooks: If you followed last week's Committee meeting, you may have anticipated some discussion on this topic. One of the benefits that teachers and other professions get from professional bodies and regulators is the protection of the value of their qualifications, although that happens in the background — it is passive — so, like a lot of this stuff, it is not necessarily recognised. At last week's meeting, we had some discussion, in which there was difference of opinion, about the quality of the iPGCE with iQTS that is offered by Coventry University, how it is working and how it might be assessed. Will you talk to the role that you have in the recognition and quality assurance of qualifications — of that specific PGCE and in general?

Ms Jackson: The iQTS was first debated in England a number of years ago, with the English Department for Education publishing an international education strategy in 2021. When iQTS was launched, the intention was that it would primarily look at adding to the register those who are undertaking a teaching qualification but do not live in England. It was intended that, in providing that statue, approved providers of the iQTS would automatically lead a pathway to the obtaining of QTS in England and Wales, allowing those who undertook a teaching qualification who do not live in England to teach there. I will quote this, if Committee members to not mind. When the programme was launched, it was stated:

All an applicant has to do is live outside England. They could live in Northern Ireland, Wales or Scotland and undertake iQTS, which is not what we had anticipated. However, Tes, which is attached to the Department for Education in England, has verified iQTS as aligning with the obtaining of QTS. We recognise qualified teacher status in the qualification rules that we referred to, which, although they need to be updated, were approved by our previous board. We have no recourse but to accept iQTS from providers that have been approved by Tes and, therefore, by the Department for Education in England. We have to accept those who have done one year of iQTS, because that leads to QTS, which is recognised in our qualification rules. Sorry if it sounded like I was going round the houses, but that is where we are at with that.

Mr Brooks: If people can access employment by that route, is there anything to compel them to further their qualification?

Ms Jackson: Those who undertake iQTS?

Mr Brooks: Yes.

Mr Gallagher: If I have understood your question correctly, the answer is no, because their having the iQTS qualification automatically grants them QTS status.

Mr Brooks: It is not necessarily a step to anything: the qualifications are recognised as being equal.

Ms Jackson: Yes.

Mr Brooks: You may not want to speak to this, but, reading between the lines, I am hearing that you feel that you are being compelled to recognise a qualification that you do not believe to have the same rigour as other PGCE qualifications.

Ms Jackson: I listened in on the discussion at last week's Committee. You had two ladies, seated at either end of the table, from the Northern Ireland Teachers' Council (NITC): one from a special needs primary school and one from a post-primary school. The lady from the special needs primary setting indicated that the iPGCE had represented their needs very well and said that she did not see it as a dilution of the needs in her education area and sector, whereas the individual from the post-primary school expressed the fear that the iPGCE may well dilute qualifications. That will need to be assessed as we go forward. We cannot answer that now. It needs to be reviewed as part of what we intend to take forward, especially with a new board that is looking at routes into teaching and at the different qualifications that can lead you into a teaching role in a primary and post-primary setting in Northern Ireland. We need to standardise how we look at those and look, in legislation, at the impact — we have to represent the interests of all — and at what can we do in our qualifications, including what they should and should not recognise. Again, the education sector will be involved in consultation on that.

Mr Brooks: The special needs school that you referred to is in my constituency. I completely respect and understand the view that was given. Nevertheless, when teachers are paying for that regulatory role and investing in themselves, they need to be sure that they are treated and valued fairly compared with others. If people look at their options and see a cheaper route — not that there should not be a cheaper route — you can see very easily how everyone may tilt towards that, which would be a problem. A less rigorous qualification would be a problem for our education system, when taken across the board and not in specific circumstances. That should be prioritised.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I might pick this up again at the end and bring others in. The TransformED agenda is not without controversy when it comes to the core content framework for initial teacher education. If we are going to mandate that for our institutions here but potentially let in teachers who have not studied something that fits with that core content framework, the two things do not seem to align.

Mr Brooks: It could be that, in some way, reform is right, but a fair structure and level playing field need to be put in place so that everybody understands it. It might be that a certain qualification will do for a particular area of teaching but not for others, but we need to understand what that is.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Absolutely.

Mrs Mason: I want to clarify something that you said earlier, Ian, about the time frame for getting registered. I think that you advertise six weeks but it is generally five weeks. Is that the same for those — I forget the figure, but it was in and around 50 — who got registered from the South, all of whom met the criteria? Were they registered within that timescale as well? Do you have data on that?

Mr Gallagher: The example that I used — six weeks but usually registered within five weeks — was for those applying from England, Scotland or Wales. We know that, for total rest-of-world applicants from outside the UK, which applicants from Ireland fall into, most applicants are accepted on to our register well within eight weeks. When I joined, under the old system, it was taking some people six to nine months.

Mrs Mason: You say "most". Do you have figures? Are there exceptions to that among those who meet the criteria?

Mr Gallagher: The exceptions are normally applicants who think that they have submitted all their information to us but have not because there is something missing. Ireland is not as bad as other countries at getting back to us. When you ask some countries to, for example, prove that an applicant has a qualification that they say they have, it can take those other jurisdictions longer to get back to us, but Ireland is pretty quick. I regularly meet my counterparts in Scotland, Wales and Ireland to talk about issues affecting us all, and the issue of application times comes up. If we need to, we see where we can intervene and try to move people along. It is largely an application-by-application process for each individual, so they need to keep an eye on their emails — they need to ensure that we have their email address — to make sure that GTCNI is not getting in touch with them to ask them for information that they think they have already submitted.

Mrs Mason: Just to clarify: for those who meet the criteria in the South, is it around nine weeks for registration?

Mr Gallagher: It is probably closer to six weeks, if not quicker. We can get those figures and forward them to you.

Mrs Mason: That would be good. Thank you.

Mrs Guy: Thanks, folks. My question is about clause 15 and commencement. It is not clear when most of the clauses will commence. What is your view on that? It states that all of the Bill will come into operation by commencement order, except for clauses 14, 15 and 16, which are administrative.

Mr Gallagher: That is legislative speak. We know that two earlier clauses — I think that they are clauses 7 and 8 — on provisional registration and further validation will not be enacted or commenced straight away. The Department intends to commence those only once there has been engagement with the teaching profession and agreement by a new GTCNI board. Does that answer your question?

Mrs Guy: It does. Are you content with that?

Mr Gallagher: Yes. Clauses 7 and 8 will be enacted only following consultation with the wider profession. We want to make sure that we get those right.

Ms Jackson: Everything else depends on whether and when legislation is approved. There will then be processes to look at board appointments etc.

On commencement, we know that we will be coming to the end of the mandate of the current Assembly, so there is only a certain amount of time for legislation to go through. We hope that, by April 2027, we will be able to commence the earlier clauses that are more to do with the current operating business of the organisation and its service levels, but that is over to the processes that must be followed before anything can be put in place.

Mrs Guy: Do you think that the trust that you are trying to rebuild with the membership could be undermined in any way by a lingering uncertainty around some of the clauses?

Mr Gallagher: I think that, rather than undermining trust, it is positive for the teaching profession as a whole that it will have its say. I know that the NITC attended the Committee last week. The NITC or others can put views forward. When we consider things such as the revalidation of teachers' accreditations and provisional registration, it is important that the profession and other key stakeholders have a say.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): We are not in control of when the Bill will pass in the Assembly. We have a degree of control, but there are factors that are outside of members' control. If the Bill in its current form becomes an Act, there is no sense, other than fairly routine things such as the short title, of when any of it will be enacted, but you have spoken to the fact that this is needed quite urgently because you, as an organisation, need the board to be in place in order to progress some things. Do you have a sense of how quickly you want to see the Department move to enact the Bill, or are you content that the Department needs to be given the time to do that as it sees fit?

Mr Gallagher: You can see a day-1, first meeting of a new GTCNI board's having a very busy agenda, with things that it needs to consider very quickly. Those would be two things on that agenda, because we will want to commence that. The model that is being proposed is seen as being good practice and something that, hopefully, will make GTCNI the fit-for-purpose body that it can be. It is about trying to get those things enacted as soon as possible while giving the teaching profession its rightful place.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Those are some other things to pick up with the Department.

I want to pick up on the core content framework that is part of the TransformED agenda. You said that you need the legislation to give GTCNI the permission, effectively, to go ahead and make some of those more substantive changes. One of those was about the core competencies for teachers. Do you foresee there being a tension if a TransformED agenda, running at its own pace and happening now, long before this legislation will see the light of day, sets a core content framework for the teacher training colleges that will dictate what teachers have to learn? In that scenario, would you have to shape your core competencies around that framework because that is what TransformED says has to be taught? Some of the people involved in initial teacher education have some concern about the core content framework and feel that it could be incredibly prescriptive and infringe academic freedom. Do you have a view on that?

Mr Gallagher: There are currently 27 competences that GTCNI owns. There was a proposal a number of years ago to condense those into 12 competences. That had almost got through the approval process when the council was dissolved. There is a recognition that we can condense those competences and make them more meaningful, yet we also know that GTCNI needs to be re-formed and re-birthed so that it can be the voice for teachers, as well as being their professional body, and say, "Here are the competences". The competences will link with the core content framework because they will form a key part of that, but we need to ensure that we are involved in those discussions now.

That said, GTCNI is, at the minute, an organisation only insofar as it has officials. It needs the board to be up and running so that the teacher representation and workforce can have their voices heard.

Ms Jackson: Yes. Remember that, whatever transpired with the previous board, the board representing teachers created and owned those competences, so the board needs to come back in to represent the profession and to own any changes to the competences in order to tie in or, perhaps —.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I absolutely accept that. Again, it is probably for the Department —

Ms Jackson: Yes, it is.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): — to answer the question of whether the TransformED agenda is in tension with the revised competences that could arise from this legislation.

Mr Burrows: I have one follow-up question. I asked about delays in teachers coming back from other parts of the UK. Is there not a backlog of registrations of teachers who are moving from Scotland to Northern Ireland? Are you saying that that does not exist?

Mr Gallagher: I am saying that it does not exist, because I am not aware of it.

Ms Jackson: No. We do not have any backlog.

Mr Gallagher: That is the first that I have heard about it.

Ms Stevenson: You have to remember that individuals in England graduate later in July —

Ms Jackson: Its calendar is different.

Ms Stevenson: — so they are under pressure, with jobs starting in September, and might be at panic stations. Our team's processing time for UK applicants is probably very similar to that for Northern Ireland applicants, but we can get you that data.

Ms Jackson: Yes. It is a steady 52 per month at the moment.

Mr Burrows: OK. Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): A few bits of data were requested — the Clerk's team will be in touch with you about those — but that brings the session to a close. Thank you for your time this afternoon.

Mr Gallagher: Thank you, Chair and members, for the opportunity.