The General Teaching Council for England is not seeking powers to suspend teachers from the register where an accusation is being investigated at local level (“Accused staff risk being removed from teachers’ register”, TES, March 21).
Our disciplinary role begins at the end of local processes. We believe that in some cases it may be in the public interest for a teacher to be suspended during further investigation. This would be invoked only in serious circumstances in which it was deemed necessary that the teacher should not take up another post until the case was resolved. Teachers deserve anonymity during local investigations. Public interest does not require that a teacher be named until charged. Where a teacher is exonerated, everything possible should be done to make this clear.
Keith Bartley, Chief executive, General Teaching Council for England, London.
