A Major Change to How Academy Trusts Must Source Supply Staff
What the new agency framework mandate means for your trust — and why you need to act now
Academy trusts spend a significant amount each year on agency supply staff. For many, this expenditure has grown organically over time, with individual schools establishing their own relationships with preferred agencies, often on the agencies' own terms and conditions. That approach is about to become non-compliant.
What Is Changing
When the Academy Trust Handbook is published in September 2026, it will include a clear requirement that trusts must use the GCA RM6376 framework for their supply staffing needs, unless they have an alternative compliant arrangement with rates that do not exceed those available through the framework.
The RM6376 framework — formally known as the Supply Teachers and Education Recruitment (STeER) framework — is managed by the Government Commercial Agency (GCA), which took over from the Crown Commercial Service in April 2026. From September 2026, academy trusts will be required to procure supply staff through approved framework agreements, with RM6376 being the main route for doing so.
This is not guidance or best practice. Once the Academy Trust Handbook 2026 is published, it will be a mandatory requirement — and compliance with the handbook is a condition of every trust's funding agreement with the Secretary of State.
Why Has This Been Introduced?
Schools across England spend around £1.4 billion a year on agency supply staff. The DfE has long been concerned about the fees charged by some agencies, and the new framework has been designed to address this directly. The RM6376 framework has been specifically negotiated by the DfE to cap fees, address unacceptable practices, and deliver frontline savings. Alongside capped agency fees, the framework also offers transparent costs, pre-approved suppliers who have passed rigorous evaluation, and complete background and safeguarding checks. It also includes a 12-week free temporary-to-permanent provision, meaning schools can employ supply staff permanently after 12 weeks without paying a transfer fee.
What If a Trust Wants to Use Its Own Arrangements?
Trusts are not required to use RM6376 exclusively, but the bar for using an alternative arrangement is high. Any alternative arrangement must be compliant with the Procurement Act 2023, with spend assessed at trust level — that is, aggregated across all schools within the trust, not at individual school level. Trusts spending above the Procurement Act financial thresholds must demonstrate they have conducted a compliant procurement process, and the rates secured must not exceed the GCA framework rates.
Trusts should also be aware of a specific risk: agencies may apply pressure to sign agency-specific terms and conditions rather than the official GCA call-off terms. Accepting such terms could put a trust outside of compliance with the new requirement.
What Should Trusts Be Doing Now?
The September 2026 deadline is close, and the time to prepare is now rather than after the handbook is published. Trusts should be reviewing their current supply agency arrangements to establish which suppliers are named on the GCA RM6376 framework, consolidating supply spend at trust level rather than leaving individual schools to manage their own agency relationships, and ensuring that any existing agency contracts are reviewed before the new academic year begins.
Trustees play an important role here. Boards should be asking whether current supply agencies are named on the GCA RM6376 framework, how supply spend is being monitored across the trust, and what the plan is for moving away from any non-compliant agencies before September 2026.
This is one of those changes that will catch trusts out if they leave it too late. The good news is that the framework itself has been designed to make compliance straightforward — but only if trusts engage with it in good time.
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