There has been outrage recently amongst supply teachers regarding the amount of money agencies charge to find them work. Some schools have said that they are paying an additional £1000 a week to agencies for the supply staff.
I think we need to take each agency and look at it as an individual, as not all agencies charge the same fees and offer the same advantages to their registered members.
There are, like any industry, some supply teaching agencies that do charge over and above and in return do not help and assist their registered teachers as much as they should. But saying that, there are many agencies out there that are not like that. They of course need to charge a fee for the work they do and if they are offering tips, resources, mentoring etc as part of the package then it is very hard to put a fixed price on that.