Steve McCabe – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Steve McCabe on 2014-06-04.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what records his Department maintains of instances where a teacher has had a sexual relationship with a student under the age of 16 years in (a) maintained schools and (b) independent schools.

Mr Edward Timpson

Since April 2012, where a teacher has been dismissed, or resigned in the face of dismissal, as a result of serious misconduct all schools have had a statutory duty to consider referring the matter to the National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL). The NCTL acts as the regulator of the teaching profession on behalf of the Secretary of State. It is responsible for determining whether the referred individual should be prohibited from teaching on the grounds of unacceptable professional conduct, conduct that might bring the profession into disrepute and/or conviction of a relevant offence. Information about cases considered by NCTL is not held in the format requested and to obtain the information requested would incur disproportionate cost.

In addition to the NCTL process for regulating teachers, the Department’s Independent Education and Boarding Team (IEBT) administer the wider regulatory system for independent schools. This team can receive information about allegations of abuse from a variety of sources, including Ofsted, local authorities, parents and the police. The Department’s records show that there have been 5 referrals since April 2012 and 2 from January 2009 to March 2012 where sexual abuse of a pupil by an adult working at the school was a factor. When such referrals are received, the Department’s role is not to investigate the allegations, which are a matter for the local authority and the police, but to determine whether the school is meeting the independent school standards, and take action to ensure it does so.