After working unsuccessfully with various recruitment models, Academies Enterprise Trust (AET) approached Reed to deliver a preferred supplier list they could trust would provide their schools with high-quality supply staff.
Watch the video below to hear what Clive Hammond, the Head of Procurement at AET, said:
The challenge
With over 32,000 pupils across 58 primary, secondary and specialist schools, the Academies Enterprise Trust is one of the largest multi-academy trusts in the UK.
It needs more than 4,500 staff to help deliver the best learning outcomes to its pupils. However, this can lead to vast supply staffing spend across its schools, as its Head of Procurement, Clive Hammond, explains:
“As the Head of Procurement for the Academies Enterprise Trust, my aim is to get the best value for money. We were looking at our supply teaching spend, which amounted to £7m-a-year at the time.”
To help reduce spend while still increasing staff quality, Clive knew that the trust needed to change its model of accessing supply staff.
The solution
With change required, Clive arranged meetings with several recruitment companies, including Reed, to discuss how they would go about creating a preferred supplier list (PSL). The trust knew that this recruitment model would give it the ability to leverage its procurement power to get better deals – and could reinvest savings back into its frontline education provision.
Following these initial discussions with multiple recruiters, it was clear that Reed offered an excellent partnership opportunity, as Clive recounts: “Reed were very forthcoming in their approach, they bought into the whole partnership approach, they listened to what we were looking for, and they came back with a very good commercial offer that supported what we were seeking to achieve as a trust.”
Following our excellent offer, we were appointed to the trust’s PSL and rapidly began providing its schools with supply staff on a large scale.
The results
Since the commencement of the PSL, the trust has been impressed by the quality of Reed’s service and has not had one single issue with the professionals we have provided.
Not only has Reed supported the Academies Enterprise Trust with supply teaching staff, we have also helped it to source support staff and caretaking staff – and are now assisting the trust in securing cleaning and catering professionals.
“I would wholeheartedly recommend Reed to schools and trusts that are looking to follow our approach,” Clive says. “Reed have shown themselves to be a really good quality supplier who work in partnership with us to provide the best education for our pupils - and that’s what we were seeking to achieve.”
