SCHOOLS in Westmorland and Furness spent over £2 million on temporary staff in the last financial year – figures show.

A freedom of information request (FOI) submitted to the council reveals that Westmorland and Furness Council maintained schools spent £2.04 million on temporary staff between April 1, 2023, and March 31, 2024.

Councillor Sue Sanderson, lead cabinet member for children’s services, education and skills at Westmorland and Furness council, said: “Individual schools are responsible for decisions around teacher recruitment and their use of supply staff within their own budgets.

“We fully trust our schools to make those decisions based on the needs of their pupils. However, that said, our schools, including academies have raised concerns about the challenges facing teacher recruitment which is an issue schools are experiencing nationally.

“As a council, we do all we can to support schools in whichever way we can and we are very proud of our strong school system in Westmorland and Furness, with 93% of our pupils attending a good or better school.”

A report issued by the government in June titled ‘School workforce in England’ shows that teacher vacancies in England have more than doubled in the three years from November 2020 to November 2023. The vacancy rate stands at 0.6 per cent.