Lancashire Teaching Agency celebrates 20th anniversary
The Lancashire Teaching Agency (LTA) marks 20 years of service to education in Lancashire, which has resulted in more than 1,000 school staff being placed in the county.
Set up in 2002 to supply temporary staff to schools, the organisation is a partnership between Lancashire County Council and Reed, the largest family-owned recruitment company in Britain.
The LTA deploys more than 1,250 candidates each year to educational settings across the county, under stringent safeguarding and quality standards. The goal is to remove the pressures of finding supply staff, to enable leaders to focus instead on raising and maintaining school standards and levels of education across Lancashire.
County Councillor Jayne Rear, Cabinet Member for Education and Skills at Lancashire County Council, said: "To provide such a vital service in helping to improve education standards for two decades is a wonderful achievement.
“The children and young people in our county deserve the very best support at school, and I want to thank the Lancashire Teaching Agency for adapting over the years to make this happen. The strong partnership between Lancashire County Council and Reed is what has enabled the LTA to flourish."
Gavin Beart, Managing Director of Reed’s education division, said: “We’re extremely passionate about supporting schools across the UK with their staffing pressures. The LTA is a one-of-a-kind partnership - a model that would benefit schools across the UK - providing a fast, effective and efficient recruitment service to schools, whether that be for teaching or non-classroom-based roles.
“It’s been an extremely difficult period for schools the last couple of years, and there are tough times ahead, however our partnership will allow us to react quickly and to help schools however we can.”
The LTA was originally set up to provide schools with supply teachers to meet demand for high quality, temporary teachers across the county. By 2009, the LTA offered whole school recruitment, including workers for support staff roles in predominantly classroom-based settings.
Over the past 13 years, the LTA has expanded its offering to meet growing demand and now offers a diverse range of support staff roles both in and outside the classroom.