With all the talk about budget restraint and belt tightening while supply teachers see their jobs fly out the window I had an interesting look at the deadweight GTC's budget for 2009-10. Read them and weep:

Registration: £4.4m

Communications - £3.7m

Regulation: £3.6m

Governanace, fee collection and administration: £3.5

Networks and the TLA: £3.4m

Policy and research: £2.5m

So that's a total of a staggering £21 million of teachers' registration fees. Of that they are spending £3.7m on "communications" which I assume means advertising etc. Then there all the other departments such as OFSTED and ESTYN, the TDA, the DfES, the Department for Children, Schools and Families, and so on. If it wasn't serious it would be funny.