Not all recruiters are certified equal

In her latest column for Education Today Naomi Howells, Managing Director at recruitment specialists Class People, warns of the dangers of using non-certified recruitment companies.

In an age of largely unprecedented recruitment and staffing challenges for schools, the educator recruitment sector is also experiencing a shift. Recruiters and recruitment firms are capitalising on the current marketplace challenges to launch new divisions or freelance agencies to service the ever-increasing demand from schools. Schools, faced with an urgent need for supply candidates, are opting to augment their longstanding supplier contracts, to ensure a steady supply of candidates. The problem is, not all agencies or freelancers are certified equal, and while appealing, the non-certified approach is leaving schools vulnerable.

Our sector is self-regulated, i.e. not subject to mandatory regulation, which means that any recruiter can become operational in the sector with few barriers to entry. Put simply, they don’t have to be certified or compliant to work in education; a concern when the education sector itself is subject to so many safeguarding regulations. In the last six months we, as a recruitment business, have supported an unprecedented number of new school clients with corrective action and alternative candidates, after an increase in frequency in safeguarding issues. It has been our job to replace candidates supplied by generalist recruiters, with credible, compliant candidates from our own dedicated pool. In fact, in our entire operating history, we have never seen such a frequency of avoidable safeguarding issues in schools: challenges that are easily overcome through good due diligence and compliance. The question is, why the shift?

The post-pandemic employment market for teachers has been, and continues to be, a turbulent one. Mass exodus of teachers; a preference for less pressurised roles; and a fall in the number of teaching students; are all having an impact on the labour market. It is hard. It is hard to find good candidates, and it is equally challenging to find supplementary staff that meet the necessary levels of compliance. Ultimately, it is schools and pupils that are paying the price, taking the risk of an untested and unverified supply candidate.

The better approach is to utilise compliant candidates from a certified recruiter. There are two routes for schools to take to minimise risk, and ensure proper recourse if needed. For Trusts, the “Master Vendor” approach assures a roster of pre-certified recruiters to approach for candidates, while for other schools, use of an agency certified by the Crown Commercial Service (CCS) offers the same assurance. As well as providing surety on the quality of candidates and the pathway for recourse, the CCS framework also provides schools with better cost control and lower overheads. Agencies certified through the CCS have to set out their costs up-front for the framework, and must commit to and demonstrate rigorous checks on their agency workers. They must also clearly demonstrate their ability to deliver the required services. The CCS agency selection tool is freely available to schools through the Department of Education portal. While the CCS Framework only applies to temporary, agency, or supply teachers, it follows that the approximately 120 agencies certified on the framework are committed to core compliance and checks, and that these standards will extend to full-time candidate placement too.