Funding is always a concern in the education sector: money is scarce, so getting value for it is paramount.
Cumbria County Council (CCC) needed a supplier to deliver effective, timely and cost-effective payroll and HR administration services to180 schools, some of which still relied on paper for their recordkeeping and reporting.
Although Capita has a long-standing relationship with CCC, its new supplier framework put us on equal square-one footing with other qualified providers in a highly competitive tendering process for each of the services it needed. Thanks to our unique combination of deep sector expertise and ability to deliver high quality services cost-effectively, Capita was one of the chosen providers.
Now we’re using our education experience, digital expertise and innovative technologies to achieve better, more efficient and effective HR and payroll outcomes for a total of 228 schools (including 56 that we already help to manage) in Cumbria until March 2024.
We’re taking on the burden of HR administration services, as well as payroll and the reams of statutory reporting requirements that comes with running a school.
And now, with a single log-in, school administrators can enter information about teachers and support staff who are joining the school or who have been promoted into a simple, automatically configured online form that generates tailored contracts of employment and payroll records.
Our support enables Cumbrian schools to focus on managing their performance with the confidence that their HR processes, payrolls and teachers’ pension schemes are being run properly.
If a school has an enquiry about an incidence of ill health or maternity/paternity leave or if a staff member’s overtime has not been processed or a pension contribution has gone astray, for instance, they can send it to us and follow it from submission to completion via a dedicated account page. Our dedicated team of education specialists, who have in-depth knowledge of the relevant compliance and statutory requirements, track and resolve all enquiries.
We’ve also taken on the complex end-to-end administration of pensions, including auto-enrolment responsibilities, starters and leavers, employment changes, monthly contributions, end-of-year certificates, general queries–paperwork that can be overwhelming.
Integrating HR, payroll and pensions platforms saves a great deal of time by preventing duplication of effort and removing the heavy burden of payroll and HR administration tasks.
But this isn’t the end of the story for our partnership with CCC. We’ll be working closely with the council over the lifetime of the contract to make sure that reporting continually meets its requirements.
To find out how we can help your school staff to reduce their administrative load, get in touch.
