This note summarises planned changes to the ways in which appropriate bodies (ABs) will undertake their functions on the induction of Early Career Teachers (ECTs) and to those organisations that will be able to act as ABs.

What is an appropriate body?

An appropriate body is responsible for ensuring that all settings providing induction for ECTs do so in a way that is of an acceptable standard and is compliant with the legal frameworks that regulate the induction process.

In particular, ABs are required to quality assure induction arrangements to ensure that their ECTs receive a programme of induction that meets the requirements of the Early Career Framework (ECF) and that all involved in the induction process get the support and guidance to which they are legally entitled. When the rights of ECTs and those supporting them are not met, ABs are expected to intervene to put matters right.

Currently, local authorities and teaching school hubs can serve as ABs as long as they are registered with the Department for Education (DfE). Most ABs serve settings in their local areas, although two national level ABs, the National Teacher Accreditation and the Independent Schools Teacher Induction Panel, are also able to act in this role.

Settings in which ECTs undertake induction have been free to choose their AB since 2012. Previously, local authorities acted as the AB for all the state-funded schools in their geographical areas.

What is changing?

In May 2022, the DfE consulted on proposed reforms to current arrangements for the provision of AB functions. The stated aim of these proposals was to ensure that ‘ABs are fit for purpose and accountable and that there is greater consistency in the AB services that schools receive to make sure that these organisations deliver their critical statutory functions effectively’.

The DfE confirmed the outcomes of this consultation in December 2022. Full details of these changes can be found on the DfE website.

The most significant changes to current arrangements include:

  • publishing clearer guidance in 2023 for ABs on the ways in which they undertake their quality assurance role and intervene in cases where the quality of induction is unacceptable or where statutory requirements are not being met;

  • placing particular emphasis in this guidance on the need for ABs to intervene when ECT mentors are not being supported appropriately;

  • improving the ability of ABs to access data on the ECTs working in settings for which they are accountable; and

  • ending the ability of local authorities to act as ABs for new ECTs from September 2023 and ending their role completely by September 2024.

NASUWT position and next steps

The NASUWT was profoundly disappointed by the decision to end the ability of local authorities to act as ABs.

Many local authorities have developed significant expertise and experience in supporting effective induction provision, all of which will be lost as a result of this decision.

Given the increasing proportion of academies and free schools in the state-funded sector, local authorities are particularly well placed to quality assure induction impartially.

More broadly, the proposed reforms fail to address some of the important shortcomings in the current AB system.

In particular, the NASUWT recommended that measures should be taken to end the deeply unhelpful practice of allowing settings to choose their own ABs.

In effect, these arrangements create an unhelpful incentive for ABs not to intervene in settings due to the risk they might lose the revenue that provision of AB services on a paid for basis generates if these settings decide to change their AB.

A system in which regulated bodies can choose and must pay for their regulator creates serious perceived and actual conflicts of interests that the DfE’s proposals have failed to address.

The DfE also failed to act on the concerns expressed by ABs that they do not have adequate powers to intervene in cases of poor practice.

Notwithstanding the stated intention to publish revised guidance, no new powers for AB will be introduced.

The Union highlighted the serious risk of placing the role of ABs almost exclusively in the teaching school hub sector.

No effective assessment has yet been made of the capacity of this sector to expand the scope of its AB operations to the extent envisaged by the DfE.

The risk remains that there will be insufficient AB capacity of sufficient quality if these reforms are implemented as intended.

The NASUWT will continue to press the DfE to set aside these proposals and to work with the Union and other stakeholders to develop a more robust and consistent regulatory framework for induction in which genuinely impartial, specialist bodies are in place to monitor practice and step in when practice is poor or illegal.

Members will be kept up to date on developments in this area. They should continue to follow NASUWT guidance on induction and seek support and advice from the Union when problems arise.