Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I welcome Gillian Kane and Michael Scholes, both of whom are research officers in the Assembly's Research and Information Service (RaISe).

I will hand over to you for an initial presentation. I ask for that to be up to 10 minutes, and we will then move to questions and answers. It is a really thorough paper, so it may be that most issues are covered, but if you want to draw out the key points, we will take it from there, Gillian.

Miss Gillian Kane (Research and Information Service): Thanks very much, Chair. I will kick off with a very brief overview of the background to the Bill, which, I know, the Committee is already familiar with; outline the work and responsibilities of the regulators in the rest of the UK and Ireland; and then highlight some of the key clauses that have received the most attention. You will have seen from the Bill paper that there is a list of general considerations as well as potential areas for scrutiny under each of the clauses. In the interests of time, I will go through the general considerations and then hand over to Michael, who will talk about the financial implications of the Bill.

As the Committee knows, the statutory responsibilities of the General Teaching Council for Northern Ireland (GTCNI) are to establish and maintain a register of teachers, approve qualifications for registration, regulate the teaching profession and provide advice to the Department and the employing authorities. It has been operating under the guise of the Department since 2021, after a very critical independent review by Baker Tilly Mooney Moore (BTMM). Since then, the Department has undertaken a consultation and two engagement exercises, and it then produced a business case in 2025 that identified that retaining and reforming the existing council was the most appropriate option.

The explanatory and financial memorandum (EFM) states that the purpose of the Bill is to:

In the EFM, the Department says that it has consulted very extensively with the other regulators. I will briefly outline what they do. The Teaching Regulation Agency in England is slightly different from the others in that it has more of a function focusing on misconduct. It is more of a regulatory body than a teacher representative body. Wales has the Education Workforce Council, which is its independent professional regulator, and it has a broader remit that covers things such as further education and work-based learning. That model was highlighted as a recommendation in the independent review of education as something that should be considered for GTCNI. Scotland has the General Teaching Council for Scotland, which was the first independent self-regulating body. Its responsibilities are very similar: maintaining a register of teaching professionals, setting qualifications and criteria for registration, and investigating concerns about competence, conduct and fitness to teach. The equivalent in Ireland is the Teaching Council, which has a remit to protect the public by promoting and regulating professional standards in teaching. It maintains a register of 126,000 registered teachers, vets applicants and ensures that newly qualified teachers coming into the profession have sufficient support. Again, it investigates complaints and sanctions, if necessary, and also accredits initial teacher education. Scotland, Wales and Ireland have very similar arrangements, and England is the exception.

As I mentioned, in the Bill paper, there are points for consideration under each of the clauses. Clause 1 is probably one of the clauses that has received the most attention from witnesses to date. It removes the list of stakeholder organisations in the Education (Northern Ireland) Order 1988. It also removes the reference to election. The Department is proposing a council of 12 members, six of whom will be teachers. All will go through the public appointments process, which will take away the elections and nominations.

Clause 4 allows the council's committees and subcommittees to include people who are not members of the council. That is specified for disciplinary committees specifically, with the new disciplinary points that have been brought in. Clause 7, which is subject to further consultation, allows for the provisional registration of teachers who do not meet the full criteria. It will give them a period of grace in which they can fill in any requirements or gaps in their qualifications. Clause 8 requires the GTCNI to periodically make registered teachers revalidate their registration through evidence of their continuing professional development. Clause 9 gives the Department the power to make regulations about any aspect of the registration of teachers. Clause 10 introduces two new offences: pretending to be a registered teacher; and providing false information. Clause 11 also introduces new offences. Previously, the council could only ban a teacher completely; there was no in-between sanction. The new sanctions are a reprimand; a conditional registration order; a suspension order, which can be for up to two years; and a prohibition order, which is for a minimum of two years. There is also an interim suspension order, if that is necessary for the protection of children or in the public interest, or in the interest of the teacher. Clause 12, which has also received quite a lot of attention, is about the introduction of fees for the council. It will be able to set fees for its services. The clause seeks to make the council financially sustainable.

That is a very brief overview of all the clauses. I will turn to general scrutiny points that the Committee may wish to consider. The first is that members may wish to satisfy themselves that the option proposed in the legislation is the best option for the reformed GTCNI. Perhaps there are other models that are more appropriate. Members may also wish to request clarification on potential risks assessed by the Department in its development of the options outlined in the business case, which the Committee now has. Given the feedback from the teaching unions, is there a need for greater independence from the Department, or is the current proposed model appropriate?

Consideration could also be given to whether there has been sufficient consultation on retaining the existing organisation as an option. Members may wish to consider whether the proposed Bill is a sufficient response to the criticisms of the previous council outlined in the BTMM report and also whether the legislative deficits identified have been filled by the Bill.

I have spoken about the different regulatory authorities. In its evidence to the Committee, the Department said that it had considered the best elements of their models. It may be worth clarifying with DE what particular lessons it has learned from its consultations with the other regulators, whether consideration should be given to the scope of GTCNI, and whether it should be expanded to include the further education workforce. Finally, how will the Department continue to monitor the performance of GTCNI, and what will be the triggers, if any, if GTCNI returns to special measures, as it has done over the past number of years?

That is a very brief run-through. I will hand over to Michael.

Mr Michael Scholes (Research and Information Service): Thanks, Gillian. I will start with section 3 of our paper. It addresses potential financial implications to the public purse that could arise from the Bill as introduced. It draws on information that is contained in the Bill, the EFM and the business case for replacement options, which was produced by the Department in February 2025.

I have highlighted four key areas that relate to the main implications as regards costs. They are regulation; staffing; investigations; and departmental funding pressures. I have included scrutiny points in the blue boxes on each of those areas. I will not read each of those, but they are for the Committee to use in its further work.

I will start with regulation. As we know, the Bill grants new regulatory powers, including investigations and sanctions. The business case indicates that those functions will increase the overall operating costs beyond the current £1·3 million a year. The Department has acknowledged that teacher registration fees would likely need to be increased to pay for that. The teaching unions gave evidence, and they have opposed that. With that in mind, I have included some scrutiny points in the paper. An example of that relates to what contingency plans the Department has to fund those new services if the teaching profession refuses an increase in fees.

I will move on to staffing costs. The business case proposes over £500,000 a year in regulation-related staffing costs. Those include senior roles, regulatory officers and legal specialists. There is a breakdown of those roles in table 2 in the paper. I found that the rationale in the business case for the numbers is not really clear and that the caseload assumptions were a bit inconsistent. For example, it assumes five to 10 cases in one part of the business case, but it assumes 15 cases when it comes to modelling the panel costs for appeals.

It is also unclear whether the Department has explored any cost-saving alternatives, such as shared services or digital approaches. There are more scrutiny points on that in the paper. Examples of those include whether the Department accounted for any workload increase due to complex or challenging cases and whether a detailed estimate been prepared regarding the training of staff in those regulatory roles.

I will move on to investigations and appeals. The business case estimates that over £80,000 a year would be needed for panels and related training and IT. Those figures are based on 2023 rates, so they are likely to be understated. I have listed in the paper the costs and underlying assumptions associated with them in the business case. The assumptions behind the panel size, frequency, escalation to appeals and High Court cases are not really clearly evidenced in the business case. There is also no indication of benchmarking across any equivalent regulators.

The scrutiny points in the paper relating to that issue include for example:

Lastly, the section looks at the Department's budget position. It is already operating under severe pressure, as the Committee is aware, with approximately £1 billion of savings required over the next three years. Any additional costs arising from the Bill would have to be absorbed into an already extremely tight budget.

Final scrutiny points in the paper on that include for example:

That is a very high level overview of the implications of the cost of the Bill.

We are both ready for any questions that you may have.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): That is great. Thank you for putting that together. That is really comprehensive.

The jurisdictional comparators were particularly helpful. I want to ask briefly about that. It struck me about the comparison that some form of election to the council seems to be the norm in other jurisdictions. By moving to an entirely unelected council, would we be out of step with other jurisdictions?

Miss Kane: That would appear to be the case with Scotland, Ireland and Wales, which have trade union nominations to the councils.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): There is some form of nomination or election in all those councils. Did anything in the Department's material give a sense of the underpinning as to why that has been completely removed? It seems to be that the Department's assumption is that election equals dysfunctionality. Is that your sense?

Miss Kane: It has not been mentioned specifically. The source would be the evidence that the Department brought to the Committee on 8 October, but it would seem to be in response to the findings of the review.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Yes.

In looking at how the councils are structured in other jurisdictions and whether they are an arm's-length body or an entirely independent entity, was there any sense that it impacted on the functioning of those bodies differently? Was there a sense that the model in Wales, Scotland or Ireland would deliver significantly different functions than an arm's-length body?

Miss Kane: Nothing came out strongly, although there was a suggestion — again, it might have been in the Department's evidence — that, because the regulator in Scotland was first ever and was established in 1965, it is well embedded in the Scottish education system. The Scottish regulator also has a role in providing advice to the Scottish Government and, according to its website, internationally as well. It has an advocacy role.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): The clause in the Bill on fees creates some provision for the council to charge fees that would go beyond covering the cost of its functions. How does that fee-setting compare with other jurisdictions? Is it capped in some way? Do they require it to cover costs, and is it allowed to go beyond that?

Miss Kane: Nothing was publicly available, but I have been in contact with the various regulators. We can follow up on that if the Committee wants us to.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I would like to follow up on that. We can tidy it up at the end in the actions arising. The issue of fees remains a niggle for me because of the open-ended element. I am not sure whether there is scope for controlling the rises in fees that may happen. It is about ensuring that the teachers who pay into it feel that they are being charged a reasonable and proportionate cost.

Mr Sheehan: In Scotland and Wales, was there any representation on the council to take account of the Scots Gaelic and Welsh language education sectors?

Miss Kane: I did not come across anything. Again, we can check that issue.

Mr Sheehan: OK. Thank you.

Mrs Guy: I agree that the information on other jurisdictions was helpful. We asked about that last week.

In the South, parental associations are included in the composition of the council. How are they selected? Maybe that is too detailed a question, but I am interested.

Miss Kane: I have asked the Teaching Council questions, and it is looking at them. I can add that to the list.

Mrs Guy: It felt like a good idea to have parental representation.

Independence has been the big bugbear for the unions. Is there any model that would allow for greater independence from the Department that works well? There is a concern that, given the way in which it is proposed, the Department will control the council. Are there other models that suggest another way to have a council that ensures and gives comfort that it is fully independent?

Miss Kane: Again, that might involve a follow-up conversation with the regulators. Their websites state that they are independent, and that is the publicly available information. However, it might be worth having that conversation to dig a little deeper into how it works in practice.

Mrs Guy: Thank you. That was very helpful.

Miss Kane: Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): There are no further indications. We may come back to you with further questions, but we will discuss that. That was very helpful. Thank you.