Is your agency ready for STeER?
Since September 2026, academy trusts have been mandated to buy supply staff through the STeER framework (RM6376), with agency fees capped. If you supply trusts, this changes your margins whether or not you're on the framework yourself.
What STeER actually is
STeER, or Supply Teachers and Education Recruitment (framework RM6376), is a DfE procurement framework negotiated with the Government Commercial Agency (formerly Crown Commercial Service), alongside ESPO, NEPO and YPO. It launched in May 2026 and caps what agencies can charge schools and trusts on top of worker pay.
It is not a safeguarding or compliance standard. It's a commercial framework. The bar it sets is on price, not on DBS or SCR requirements. But the two are connected: agencies that can't run compliance efficiently find capped rates much harder to work at.
Agency mark-up caps (RM6376)
Caps apply to agency mark-up, not worker pay.
Get the STeER readiness checklist.
A short, practical checklist for education supply agencies: what to check now it's in force, and where a capped mark-up leaves no room for a manual back office.
How scout. gets you ready
A straight answer on compliance and cost under the new caps.
Your mark-up just got a ceiling.
RM6376 caps what agencies can charge on top of worker pay when a trust buys through the framework. When your mark-up is capped, a manual back office stops being a cost you can absorb. It becomes the difference between a placement that's profitable and one that isn't.
Academy trusts, mandated since September 2026.
Since September 2026, the Academy Trust Handbook has required academy trusts to procure supply staff through RM6376, unless they have a compliant alternative under the Procurement Act 2023 at rates that don't exceed the framework's. If you supply trusts, this affects you whether or not you're on the framework yourself.
Compliance inspection-ready. Back office lean enough to survive the caps.
Getting a place on the framework is a procurement exercise. Staying profitable on it is an operations one, and that's the part scout. handles. Your compliance coverage (DBS, SCR, barred-list, Right to Work) stays inspection-ready at all times, and your back-office cost stays a fixed monthly fee rather than a salary, so a capped mark-up doesn't turn into a loss-making placement.
At capped rates, back-office cost is the variable you control.
STeER caps what agencies can charge on top of worker pay. At £40 to £45 per day for teacher supply, the cost of manual admin hours is no longer easy to absorb. Agencies with lean, automated back offices stay profitable at capped rates. Agencies that rely on manual processes feel the squeeze first.
Trusts buying through the framework will expect clean, producible records.
When academy trusts procure through RM6376, they expect agencies to produce evidence of compliance checks for every worker on assignment. A compliance audit trail that lives in spreadsheets and email threads is a risk. scout. keeps every record structured, timestamped, and exportable on demand.
STeER,
plainly.
STeER stands for Supply Teachers and Education Recruitment, framework agreement RM6376. It's a DfE procurement framework, administered by the Government Commercial Agency (formerly Crown Commercial Service) alongside ESPO, NEPO and YPO, that caps what agencies can charge schools and trusts for supply staff. It launched in May 2026.
No. It's a procurement and fee framework, not a safeguarding or compliance standard. There's no 'STeER compliance' to build in. The requirement is about the commercial route trusts buy through and the rate caps on agency mark-up, not about DBS or SCR standards.
Agency mark-up is capped at £45/day for STEM teachers, £40/day for non-STEM teachers, £36/day for support staff (£38/day for SEND), and £55/day for senior roles. These caps are on the agency fee, not on worker pay.
That depends on the trusts you supply and their procurement route. For how an agency gets a place on the framework, the GCA and DfE supplier guidance is the right source. The process sits with them. Whatever route you take, the thing in your control is being ready: compliance records a trust can rely on, and a cost base that works at capped rates.
It keeps your Compliance Officer's coverage (DBS, SCR, barred-list, Right to Work) inspection-ready at all times, and keeps your back-office cost fixed and low as your trust business grows. Under capped fees, that's what keeps a placement profitable.
At open-market rates, agencies had more margin to absorb compliance admin and back-office overhead. At RM6376 caps of £36 to £55 per day, there is less buffer. Manual compliance admin eats into that buffer every week. Agencies that automate this work protect their margin. Agencies that do not will find capped placements unprofitable.
That your agency fee does not exceed the framework caps, and that you can produce clean compliance evidence for every worker on assignment. The second point is where agencies with manual, spreadsheet-based tracking get caught out. Records need to be current, complete, and producible within minutes, not reconstructed from email threads.
Read the longer guide: STeER (RM6376) 2026: what supply agencies need to know.
Ready to talk it through?
Your audit trail is always inspection-ready.
scout. is the compliance-led CRM for education supply agencies, with an AI team built in. Book a 20-minute call and we'll show you exactly how it keeps your compliance current and your back-office cost fixed, whatever RM6376 means for your desk.
Book a call