Education supply
Compliance software for education supply agencies.
Schools keep a single central record, and the entries for your supply staff are the ones an inspector heads for.
14 days free access · no card needed
Education supply is audited through somebody else's document. Schools maintain a single central record of pre-appointment checks, agency staff appear on it, and the evidence behind those entries comes from the agency. An inspection of the school becomes an examination of your files, at their notice rather than yours.
The checks themselves are the most stringent of any sector an agency places into, and the work is the most seasonal. Both of those push in the same direction: large numbers of placements, arranged quickly, against files that have to be complete before the worker reaches the gate.
The seasonality compounds it. Demand arrives in bursts around terms, and the files assembled fastest are the ones most likely to be sampled later — because the placements that happen in a rush are the placements that happen in volume.
The file
What a education supply file has to hold
- Enhanced DBS certificate, with the date issued
- Children's [barred list](/glossary/barred-list) check
- Right to work, and any time limit on it
- Qualifications and teaching status where the role requires it
- Prohibition and restriction checks where they apply
- References covering the period a school expects
AgencyOptix records each of these as a dated item with its own expiry. It does not carry out the check.
The problem
What makes education supply compliance hard
Your evidence lands on their record
The school records that checks were done; you hold what they were done against. When an inspector tests an entry, the agency has to produce the underlying evidence quickly and in a form that matches what the school recorded.
Checks that are not interchangeable
An enhanced certificate, a barred list check and any applicable prohibition check are different things with different scope. Treating them as one clearance is the mistake that survives right up until somebody reads the file properly.
September, and everything at once
Demand arrives in concentrated bursts around terms and inspections. A compliance process that works at twenty placements a month does not necessarily hold at two hundred in a fortnight, and the files assembled under that pressure are the ones later examined.
Day-to-day supply, repeated placement
A supply worker may be placed at a dozen schools in a term, each wanting their own assurance. The same evidence is produced over and over, in slightly different forms, by people under time pressure.
The answer
How AgencyOptix helps
Checks that are not interchangeable
Each check is a dated item on the candidate file in its own right, so an enhanced certificate, a barred list check and anything else sit separately rather than collapsing into one status.
DBS & screeningYour evidence lands on their record
What was checked, by whom and on what date is held as a trail that can be produced, which is the form a school's inspection asks the agency for it in.
Audit trailSeptember, and everything at once
The compliance position across the book is visible rather than needing to be assembled, so a surge is managed from what is actually complete rather than from who somebody remembers clearing.
Compliance dashboardDay-to-day supply, repeated placement
Client and placement records hold which schools a worker has been supplied to and what each required, so repeated assurance comes from a record rather than from a consultant's inbox.
Clients & placements
Who it is for
The people doing this job
Education consultants
Booking day-to-day and longer-term supply, often across many schools in a term.
assignmentCompliance and safeguarding leads
Owning files that a school's inspection will test without much notice.
compliance fileSchool business managers at your clients
Maintaining the central record your entries appear on, and answerable for it.
Supply staff on your books
Holding checks and qualifications across several agencies and many placements.
worker
Questions
What education supply desks ask
- Does AgencyOptix run enhanced DBS checks?
- No. It does not carry out any check. It records the check you made and the certificate you saw, and tracks when you have decided it should be done again. Submitting an application stays with your umbrella body or provider.
- Can barred list checks be recorded separately?
- Yes. Each check is a dated item in its own right, so a barred list position is recorded and reviewed separately rather than being folded into the certificate.
- Can we produce evidence for a school's central record?
- The audit trail records what was checked, by whom and when, and is built to be produced. Matching it to a particular school's format stays a job for your team, but the underlying evidence comes out as a record rather than a search.
- Does it decide whether somebody can work with children?
- No, and it should not. It shows what is on file and what has lapsed. The suitability decision belongs to the agency and the school, and it is not one software should appear to make.
- Does it handle umbrella or PAYE arrangements?
- No. Timesheets are captured and approved; payroll, umbrella and payment arrangements sit outside AgencyOptix.
Keep reading
One file per worker, and the dates watched for you
Candidates, clients, placements and the compliance behind them, for education supply desks.
14 days free access · no card needed