Tollesbury School is based in Essex and had used its Local Authority payroll services for many years. However, in October 2021, rumours began circulating among schools in the area that the Local Authority would cease their payroll service and schools would need to find new providers from 1st April 2022.
Not surprisingly, there was a lot of confusion, and the Essex schools were unsure about what was happening with their payrolls. Tracey Armstrong, School Business Manager, explained,
“Information was slow coming out to schools and was inaccurate. There was confusion on what was happening, but the long and short of it was that ECC were going to stop providing a payroll service, and you had to be ready to go with another provider from1st April.”
At this point, Tracey didn’t want to leave the school’s payroll and pensions vulnerable. So, with links to a consortium that was doing some groundwork to find possible payroll partners, she began looking at some suggested providers. Dataplan were recommended, and following a two-way bid process with another recommended provider, the school chose Dataplan.
NEW BEGINNINGS WITH DATAPLAN
One of the reasons Dataplan won was that from the start of the engagement process, Dataplan established excellent communication and built trust with the school that they would receive personal support.
Tracey really appreciated this, as she explained, “We only had three months to decide what to do. Payroll is the one thing that is quite frightening because you are dealing with people’s wages and pensions!”
Once the decision had been made, there was only a short time frame to turn things around. Despite being understandably nervous about the move, Tracey felt “immense relief” when everyone was paid on time, come their first pay date on the 26th April.
FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH
Ten months into the contract, Tracey described things as “going from strength to strength.”
She explained, “I feel happy that I have my school’s payroll sorted out. The thought of moving from ECC was daunting at the beginning. I kept worrying about people’s salaries and what would happen if there were problems. However, Dataplan did take a lot of the stress out of it for me.
If we hadn’t been forced to change, we would have probably stayed with ECC as it was working for us. We hadn’t had many problems with them to prompt a move, but now we have, it has probably worked out for the best!
I prefer how we get the files from Dataplan a week or so ahead of payday so you can see exactly who is getting what. This wasn’t the case previously from the Local Authority; they processed the files, and you had to sort out any errors afterwards.”
MOVING FROM PAPER TO EPAYSLIPS
In addition to changing providers, as part of the transition, the school also decided to switch from printed paper payslips to ePayslips. This hadn’t been an option as a part of the service with the local Council, and they were surprised by the number of efficiencies it introduced.
Tracey commented, “ePayslips are really great, and I now only have to print out one payslip for an elderly member of staff who does not use the internet!
It saves me time, and I don’t have to go around taking payslips to everyone. It’s great that the P60s will also be delivered through ePayslips because they were always printed separately too.”
SERVICE TOO GOOD NOT TO SHARE
Tollesbury School has been so happy with their service that they have even recommended Dataplan to other schools.
In the summer, I went to a conference, the first one I have been able to attend since lockdown, and I spoke to so many unhappy schools, and I was pleased to say that we went to Dataplan and that we are really happy.“
