Capping agency supply staff fees limits the mark-up but leaves the evidence behind each booking open

News · Public sector and end-hirers · OPRaaS Platform

Agency supply staff should now cost many academy trusts less to book. Since September 2026, single and multi-academy trusts have been required to use a framework that caps agency fees, unless they secure a compliant alternative.

Schools in England spend around £1.4 billion a year on agency supply staff, according to the Department for Education, so a lower fee matters. The cap limits the agency’s mark-up on a booking. It leaves the evidence behind that booking with the trust.

What the agency supply staff mandate requires of academy trusts

The UK Government Commercial Agency (formerly Crown Commercial Service) Supply Teachers and Education Recruitment framework, RM6376, launched in May 2026, according to the department. The requirement sits in paragraph 2.28 of the Academy Trust Handbook 2026, which took effect on 1 October 2026, and Department for Education guidance dates the mandate from September 2026 and explains how it works. Local authority schools can also use the framework.

A trust can buy elsewhere through a compliant alternative framework or contract whose rates do not exceed the framework’s.

That usually means one in line with the Procurement Act 2023, although the department says it will not force trusts out of existing compliant contracts, including those placed under the 2015 regulations before 24 February 2025. Spend should be estimated across all of the trust’s schools combined. A dozen schools each booking modestly may look small on their own and exceed the Procurement Act threshold together.

The guidance also carries a warning. A trust may lose all the framework’s contractual protections if it signs an agency’s own terms and conditions instead of the official call-off terms.

Where the money goes on an agency supply staff booking

The Department for Education published a worked example in April 2026. According to that example, out of a total daily charge of £308, £200 goes on the worker’s pay, £37 on on-costs such as National Insurance and pension, and £71 on the supplier fee, which covers the agency’s operating costs and profit.

The framework caps only that last figure, according to the department. The maximum daily supplier fees published by the Department for Education are:

• Teachers: £45 for STEM and £40 for non-STEM, according to the department.
• Educational support staff: £38 for SEND roles and £36 for non-SEND roles, on the department’s figures.
• Senior roles: £55 for headteachers and senior leadership, on the department’s figures.
• Other roles: £36 for facilities management, £32 for admin and clerical, and £34 for other roles such as invigilators and cleaners, on the department’s figures.

These are maximums, and the department says many agencies have agreed lower charges. It also says agencies must give a transparent, per-candidate breakdown of their charges, which is useful evidence for any trust to keep.

Why a capped fee is not an agency supply staff check

A fee cap controls what an agency may charge. It does not show what happened on an assignment, and for public sector buyers and other end-hirers those are separate questions.

Agencies on the framework were pre-approved through an evaluation process, which is worth having. That evaluation cannot answer questions about a particular booking. Once someone asks, a trust may need to show:

• who verified the person’s identity and right to work, and when;
• whether the agency is the employer, or an umbrella company sits below it;
• whether the worker’s pay matches the rate behind the charge; and
• when the safeguarding checks were last reviewed.

A capped fee tells a trust what it is paying. It does not tell the trust who was supplied, who employs them, how they were paid, or when the checks behind them were last run.

Pay is a live part of this. The department says the mandate caps agency profit only and should not affect supply staff pay, and it asks trusts to report any agency claiming otherwise.

Where an umbrella company is involved, another set of rules also applies. The joint and several liability rules for umbrella arrangements, introduced by Finance Act 2026, which inserts Chapter 11 into Part 2 ITEPA 2003, have effect for payments made on or after 6 April 2026, and are distinct from the older PAYE debt transfer powers. They concern PAYE and National Insurance rather than agency fees, and they do not depend on which framework was used for the booking.

What trusts should check after adding agency supply staff suppliers

A framework gives a trust a list of suppliers. Keeping that list under review is the trust’s own job, and it is covered in the Supplier Compliance Verification topic in Module 3 of the OPRaaS LSCA Self-Certification Course.

The topic starts by setting three policies for a preferred supplier list: how often checks run and what they cover, when supplier agreements are reviewed, and how non-compliance is escalated and corrected. Using a supplier that is not on the list requires a documented waiver or approval.

It then asks questions that a trust or a recruitment agency should be able to answer:

• How often are compliance checks performed on list members?
• Are they documented for later audit?
• Who is responsible for carrying them out?
• What is reviewed, such as financial stability, legal compliance, VAT, PAYE and CIS status, right-to-work controls and modern slavery risk?
• If a supplier fails a check, what corrective action follows and how is removal handled?

Clear answers are the basis of labour supply chain assurance, because they still hold when someone asks about a booking months later.

How OPRaaS audits support evidence on agency supply staff suppliers

OPRaaS, On-Pay-Roll-as-a-Service, is a systemised governance and workforce management partner for organisations that rely on temporary, contractor and contingent labour. Through the OPRaaS Virtual Compliance Director solutions we embed senior governance leadership into your business without the cost of a full-time director, building audit-ready controls across JSL, IR35, CIS, GLAA, modern slavery and HMRC labour supply chain expectations.

The OPRaaS audit platform puts structured questions to the agencies and umbrella companies supplying agency supply staff, and holds the evidence behind each answer. Answers are scored, and each audit produces a PDF report with that evidence linked, which a trust can keep on file.

Alongside the platform, the OPRaaS Virtual Compliance Director (OPRaaS VCD) runs a quarterly risk-check cycle on umbrella companies on a preferred supplier list, covering payslips, credit scores, director changes and VAT registration, with Companies House used for director and ownership changes and Creditsafe for credit-risk changes.

The result is an evidence file covering temps, freelancers, contractors, interims and consultants across end-hirers, recruitment agencies, umbrella companies, MSPs and public sector buyers.

OPRaaS is named as a supplier on the UK Government Commercial Agency (formerly Crown Commercial Service) Audit and Assurance Services Two framework (RM6310), Lot 2: External Audit and Lot 4: Other Independent Assurance, and is registered on the RM6219 Learning and Training Services and RM6237 Low Value Purchase System dynamic purchasing systems. The OPRaaS LSCA platform is available on G-Cloud 15 (RM1557.15), Lot 2b: Software as a Service.

Three agency supply staff records for trust boards to request

The agency’s mark-up on supply staff is now capped. The governance question remains with the trust board, and three records will show where it stands:

1. the per-candidate breakdown of pay, on-costs and supplier fee;
2. the date each supplier was last checked, and by whom; and
3. a reconciliation of what a worker was paid against what the school was charged.

If those records are easy to produce, the trust has more than a better price. It has evidence that the booking was well governed.

Compliance is your asset. Evidenced daily.

Read next

“Government is raising the bar for Multi-Academy Trust governance. Can you evidence what happens after procurement?“

Drawing on the Department for Education guidance on the supply staff mandate published by Get Help Buying for Schools; the Department for Education Maximising Value for Pupils blog post of 29 April 2026 on the Supply Teachers and Education Recruitment framework; the Procurement Act 2023; the 2026 Academy Trust Handbook; Finance Act 2026 and Part 2 ITEPA 2003; and Module 3 of the OPRaaS LSCA Self-Certification Course.