63 Response Accepted in Part Self-assessed

Extend TRA jurisdiction to teaching assistants

Recommendation

The Department for Education should amend the Teachers' Disciplinary (England) Regulations 2012 to bring all teaching assistants, learning support staff and cover supervisors within the misconduct jurisdiction of the Teaching Regulation Agency. The Department for Education and the Welsh Government should amend Keeping Children Safe in Education and Keeping Learners Safe to: provide more detailed guidance as to the quality, nature and degree of supervision required for supervised volunteers working with children in schools; and make clear that Disclosure and Barring Service checks are free of charge for supervised volunteers, and should be obtained wherever practicable. The Department for Education and the Welsh Government should amend the regulations to provide that inclusion on the children's barred list automatically disqualifies the individual from being a governor or proprietor of any school. The Home Office should amend the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 so that proprietors and members of the proprietorial body and governors should be checked against the children's barred list.

Published Evidence Summary
The following publicly available evidence relates to this recommendation:
AI analysis did not return a result for this recommendation.
How was this assessed?
Assessed by gemini-2.5-flash on 19 Mar 2026
Checked data held on this site (government responses, progress updates, independent evidence)
External sources searched: www.gov.uk, www.legislation.gov.uk, hansard.parliament.uk
Jurisdiction
England
Section Reference
E
Response
Accepted in Part
Accepted in Part UK Government
22 May 2023

On 30 June 2022, the UK government stated that anyone undertaking teaching work can be referred to the Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) and this could include teaching assistants and learning support staff. The TRA does not consider a person's specific job role or position and the UK government did not propose a change but stated that it will continue to monitor and review how the teacher misconduct regime operates. The UK government stated that it agrees in principle with the recommendation to provide more detailed guidance on supervised volunteers and will consider how and when to update Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE). It also stated that it accepts the recommendation in respect of DBS checks and has reflected this in KCSIE 2022. The UK government stated that the Department for Education will consider whether proprietors or governors should be checked against the children's barred list and, if so, will work with the Home Office and DBS to implement this. On 30 June 2022, the Welsh Government stated that it accepts this recommendation in principle and will consider it and make the necessary changes to the Keeping Learners Safe guidance. It also stated that it considers that the Independent School Standards (Wales) Regulations 2003 already fulfil the recommendation in respect of the children's barred list, as they already apply to proprietors and staff at independent schools. However, it will consider whether the relevant provision can be amended to apply to governors.

Read Full Response
Source
Inquiry IICSA
Report The Residential Schools Investigation Report 10 Mar 2022
Responsible Bodies
Department for Education Primary
Recommendation age 4.0 yrs
Last formal update 1037 days ago