The London Borough of Hillingdon previously managed everything in-house, including the payroll, Teachers’ Pensions and the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS).
In 2011 the LGPS was outsourced, and the leadership team decided to outsource the payroll and pensions functions. Elaine Hill Schools Finance Officer explained, “it was felt that at least half of Hillingdon schools had shown an interest in becoming an academy and it was the leader’s understanding that it would be more sustainable to outsource the schools’ payroll and HR functions. The contract went out to tender and was won by Dataplan.
Elaine had initially been based within the HR function handling Teacher’s Pensions, so when the HR was outsourced, she was moved into the Schools Finance Team; since the TPS is a statutory function, her role remained.
LEADING WITH COMPASSION
Naturally, with the circumstances, there were some teething problems. With the functions being outsourced, there were redundancies involved, and some of the remaining staff felt uncertain about the change.
To tackle this, a team of people from Dataplan visited the Civic Centre to meet with the staff and help to alleviate concerns. It was a priority that the staff were treated with compassion and understanding. With Hillingdon being such a large Education Authority, the decision was made to transfer the schools over in stages over six months. Doing so eased the onboarding process and ensured less pressure on both ends, allowing for the workload to be spread over a more manageable period.
As with all new clients, reports were sent back and forth until we could be sure that everything was correct and the payroll was ready to go live. Elaine explained, “you guys came in, told us what was needed, and we produced the reports that you worked on from your end.”
GETTING OFF TO A GREAT START
In her role handling the TPS on behalf of Hillingdon, Elaine deals with four different payroll providers, of which Dataplan is the biggest. The other three collectively only manage a handful of schools. From the beginning, our team built a strong relationship with the staff at Hillingdon.
Elaine explained, “I’ve had a really good relationship with Phyliss Downs and George Serls from the get-go, and I’ve always found them to be very receptive to things that I don’t understand or agree with.”
In some ways, the decision to outsource did create efficiencies for Elaine. Instead of dealing with all of the different schools, she now only has to deal with Dataplan and the three other providers. When the payroll was managed in-house, she dealt with as many as ten different team members at any time.
She continued, “from the minute I met up with George and Phyliss, I think we had the same vision; it worked really well from my perspective.”
MASTERING MCR
Not only did Elaine have to navigate a significant structural change at the authority, but in addition to this, Teachers’ Pensions decided following an audit which highlighted major inconsistencies across the UK that they would be moving from the process of Annual Returns to Monthly Data Collection (MDC) followed by a move a few years later to Monthly Contribution Reconciliation (MCR).
Whilst the process of MCR ensures that everything is balanced to the penny and gives much better results, it was a huge change. Elaine explained, “I was terrified at the beginning because I thought, I’ve done it a certain way for so long!” Following a previous failed attempt at moving to MDC, George and his team took charge of the MCR onboarding project.
Teachers Pensions’ provided the template, and at Dataplan, we configured the reports required to populate the template. Once Elaine populates it with the data from the report, errors can be identified and rectified. These errors must be corrected, as they can only be carried over for a very short period.
Elaine commented, “From the beginning, on average, I was getting 30 or 40 errors. I don’t get any more than 4 or 5 now. Before, if errors were made, they weren’t always picked up by myself or Dataplan as we deal with about 1,200 teachers. Now, if there is an error, it is picked up in the month, and we have an agreement that it will be fixed by the following month.
I sent an email to George and Phyliss thanking everyone at the end of the financial year because every error, for whatever reason, was all cleared in the March payroll, meaning we were compliant and didn’t carry anything forward. It’s a vast improvement. It’s so much more accurate now. On the whole, they have done a fantastic job.”
