Crown Commercial Service announces partnership with key buying organisations to strengthen procurement of temporary workers in schools

The partnership with Yorkshire Purchasing Organisation (YPO), Eastern Shires Purchasing Organisation (ESPO), and North East Procurement Organisation (NEPO) marks a significant step forward for the Supply Teachers and Temporary Staffing (STaTS) agreement and will contribute to the continued delivery of exceptional support and procurement expertise to the education sector.

The STaTS agreement currently offers the following benefits to your organisation: 

• background screening of workers and safeguarding that complies with Department for Education (DfE) Keeping Children Safe in Education standards
• option, after 12 weeks in post, to transfer a temporary worker to a permanent role at no extra cost (subject to 4 weeks notice)
• compliance with Public Contracts Regulations 2015
• consistent pre-negotiated terms and conditions
• transparency of costs: you can see how much the worker is getting paid each day and how much the agency or supplier is charging
• access to dedicated support from the category teams at CCS, YPO, ESPO and NEPO
• completely free-to-use service

What does the new partnership mean for schools?

Over the past 5 years, we’ve worked to improve knowledge of the procurement of temporary workers in schools, and this partnership underscores our commitment to its success. By bringing together our collective strengths, we hope to further the impact of the STaTS agreement and provide even more value to the education sector, framework users, and our suppliers.

For example, additional step-by-step support will now be available to all customers to enable them to more easily identify the most cost-effective solution for their school. Further robust and efficient analysis of spend will also be carried out so that we can continue to add considerable commercial value and use our aggregated strength to control market rates.

Clemmie Smith, Deputy Director, Health & Education Workforce at CCS, said:

CCS is committed to supporting its customers across the public sector. We have worked with the education sector to develop an agreement focused on the needs of schools, enabling access to supply teachers and temporary staff with the right skills, qualifications and compliance checks and at transparent rates. This new and innovative partnership with ESPO, YPO and NEPO means that we can provide even better support across the country, ensuring more schools prosper from the excellent benefits the agreement offers.

Agnieszka Gajli MCIPS, Strategic Procurement Manager – Professional Services at YPO, said:

We’re proud of our strategic alliance with CCS, ESPO and NEPO. As public sector buying organisations, we share the same vision of helping support and deliver the best service to the education sector. Recruitment is a high challenge that the sector is currently facing and by collaborating with others we’re able to meet the changing needs of the sector and bring greater flexibility through the solution.

Through this partnership, we’re not only combining resources but also multiplying our capabilities. Together, CCS, YPO, ESPO, and NEPO are able to offer comprehensive, end to end support to framework users.

Richard Skelton, Procurement Service Manager at ESPO, commented:

ESPO is proud to be part of this collaboration and with four framework providers now joining forces, there will be even more opportunity to provide our customers with more support, helping them to save money and demonstrate spend transparency.

The agreement has already supported almost 3,500 customers, with combined commercial benefits of over £8.6 million – we hope to help even more framework users realise these benefits by using the agreement. With the partnerships in place and resources quadrupled, we’re in a great position to make this ambition a reality.

Joanne Leask, Procurement Manager at NEPO, said:

This is an exciting partnership that will help ensure the education sector continues to benefit from high quality, qualified teaching staff at short turnaround times. This solution will help address the challenges the sector faces whilst delivering benefits across the country. I’m looking forward to working with colleagues at CCS, YPO and ESPO to deliver a solution that works for all our customers.

Find out more

Find out more about the STaTS agreement on our website, or read some real life examples of how the framework has supported schools already.

With the continued growth of the agreement, we’re in a great position to build on the successes of the last 5 years.

Whether you’re an individual school, a Multi-Academy Trust, a local authority or any other educational establishment, we’re keen to discuss how this agreement can help. Together, we can ensure a compliant, robust route to market for schools and academies.

To hear more about the agreement and how it can support your organisation, please register for our free webinar in conjunction with the Department for Education Buying for Schools team, where we’ll be discussing the framework and the partnerships in more detail.

For more information, contact the CCS Service Desk at info@crowncommercial.gov.uk or 0345 410 2222.