Browne Jacobson, HR for education conference 2018, balancing the books, 3 October 2018, Birmingham, restructure

1. HR for Education 2018

2. Browne Jacobson
Tom Wallace
Balancing the Books
Alternatives to redundancies

3. Session overview
Alternatives to redundancies and wider cost saving options:
— recruitment and retention
— wellbeing
— absence
— purchasing power
— TLRs and performance management
— optimising resources

4. Recruitment and
Retention

5. Agencies
Cost to the sector:
— supply teachers – £1.3 billion in 2015/2016 – over £58,000 per
school
— recruitment agencies – over £500 million in 2015/2016
(excludes Academies)
— example from 16/17 – Enfield LA spent over 7 million on
supply and agencies

6. Agencies
To tackle this Damian Hinds is proposing (June 2018):
— a free website to advertise full and part-time teacher
vacancies
— an official list of agencies that do not charge extra fees if
supply staff are made permanent after 12 weeks
— agencies on this list must set out the fees they charge on top
of supply staff wages

7. Agencies
— negotiate better rates – still see some schools paying 18-20%
should be able to get this down to around 10% or lower
— if part of a MAT use buying power, if not collaborate with
other schools so group together
— ensure you negotiate a refund clause if you pay referral fees
but the employee leaves within XX period of time/their
probationary period

8. Retention Payments
Case Study 1:
— one school was spending over £125,000 per year on
recruitment and management costs in replacing teachers who
leave. Trust agreed to pay teachers a £400 bonus to stay –
totalled around £30,000 – managed to demonstrate cost
saving to tax payer/ESFA as well as a reduction in turnover
which will hopefully improve education.

9. Retention Payments
Case Study 2:
Outstanding Head of Maths – year on year improvement in
results. Highlighted as outstanding department by Ofsted.
Employee was considering resigning. School agreed to pay £4,000
retention bonus and used the following justification:
– shortage subject – unlikely to be able to replace
immediately
– cost of adverts – at least £3-4,000 in TES costs
– cost in management time in recruiting
– agency costs whilst finding replacement

10. Recruitment/adverts
Consider alternatives to costly TES / detail all ‘perks’ that stand
you out
Trusts developing own applicant monitoring systems/recruitment
websites
Using social media – Twitter/LinkedIn
Consider signing on bonus – the old Isaac Newton award or
Golden Hello/Handshake

11. Wellbeing

12. Staff benefits
It may seem odd to spend money when budgets are so tight
however these areas could help reduce costs over time, support
staff wellbeing and hopefully please the unions:
— EAP Scheme – can get counselling sessions for all staff cheaper
than counselling for one staff if recommended by OH
— employee benefits – Perkbox, salary sacrifice schemes

13. Staff benefits
— wellbeing days: one Trust gives all staff one wellbeing day per
term
— moving away from rigid STCPD – one Trust is allowing SLT to
have up to a week off during term time

14. Absence

15. Absence
— typically costs secondary schools £100,000s and primary
schools £10,000s
— large MATs are exploring hiring extra ‘floating’ teachers or
cover supervisors to work across the Trust to reduce the
amount of agency staff. One full time post across 4/5 schools
with on-costs can be cheaper than agency fees

16. Case Study
— large secondary academy – extremely high absence (costing
circa £400,000 per year)
— return to work interviews not being done – poor absence
management process
— principal began doing all return to work meetings for 3
months then passed to VP – absence levels dropped across the
Academy – after year 1 absence cost reduced to £240,000 –
still high

17. Absence – return to work meetings
— most common absence management tool – they do make a
difference to reducing levels of absence and reinforcing your
Duty of Care
— need not be time consuming
— ensures you are consistent
— Creating a culture whereby absences will be managed

18. Buying Power

19. Buying Power
— To increase your buying power and save money, form buying groups
or join an e-procurement site. Procurement sites can also help you
achieve value for money as they encourage fair competition
between suppliers.
— Example:
Schools are saving more than 40% via new framework for printers.
DfE recommended - Multifunctional Devices (RM3781) framework

20. Regional buying Hubs
— Trial in North West and South West
— School Buying Hubs are intended to help schools achieve
savings where goods and services which can be effectively
bought on a regional basis or where the services are complex,
infrequently purchased and high value.
— Schools in NW and SW can register here:
https://consult.education.gov.uk/schools-commercial-
team/927e1fd1/

21. Regional buying Hubs
The Schools Buying Hubs will offer the following key services:
— expert advice and guidance on buying
— help with complex contracts, particularly services such as
catering, cleaning and premises
— promotion of local collaboration and aggregation, where there
is an opportunity to reduce costs on areas such as learning
resources, ICT learning resources and administrative supplies

22. Cost Analysis/Reduction Companies
— take a % of savings so don’t cost anything
— reduce paper consumption
— reduce printing costs
— one secondary school was using so much paper if you pilled it
up annually it would be 7m taller than the shard

23. TLRs and
Performance
Management

24. TLRs and Performance Management
Performance Management – UPS3 teachers with TLRs
— for most Secondary Schools these can cost over 1 million with
on-costs
— are they your highest performing teachers
— can you justify the TLR

25. Optimising
Resources

26. Resources
— optimise sports halls/playing fields - Weddings/clubs etc.
— on-site housing – consider using for NQTs – discounted rent
— outsourcing

27. Questions?

28. Thank you
Tom Wallace
HR Consultant
t: 07771512300
e: tom.wallace@brownejacobson.com

29. Don’t forget to visit our networking
zones and exhibitors!
Submit your questions for our upcoming
webinar –
education@brownejacobson.com
Join in the conversation #BJ_HREd
Coffee break