Working with Academies and MATs
Providing payroll, pensions and HR solutions for Academies and MATs
We have been working with Academies since their inception, initially helping many schools as they transitioned to academy status and moved away from the payroll and pensions services provided by the Local Authority.
Today the pressure on academies to manage resources efficiently, whilst maintaining standards in the classroom means that working with partner suppliers who can support and add value, is a real benefit.
From a payroll perspective, MATs have created a number of opportunities for standardisation of services, plus new services not previously available. We help our clients take advantage of these opportunities by taking time to find out about your organisation, how information flows around the MAT and your objectives for the future.
Adding value for MATs
Larger MATs are now becoming the norm, with larger groups, often driven by primary feeder schools joining the MAT. This all adds complexity to processes such as payroll and pension submissions, with multiple points of contact, who may have differing levels of experience and expertise.
In our experience, what MATs value is a combination of standardisation with flexibility.
Standardisation of best practice
One of the key problem areas with payroll inaccuracy is due to the way the data is submitted and input. We ensure all MAT members use the same best practice method for submitting payroll, pension and HR data, utilising smart forms and our user-friendly hub, VERA.
Flexibility of authorisation
Our systems gives access to individual schools for data input with the control of central review and approval.
This also supports your audit requirement to demonstrate effective control over your school processes, even when outsourced. We have invested heavily in undergoing an external audit process (SAE16 – Service Organisation Control reporting framework) that is acceptable for the Audit Commission in any pension return requirement and the MATs own auditors.
The power of employee-centric data
With all schools inputting the same data to the same format, it gives you a very powerful source of management and HR information at your fingertips.
All data is held on VERA giving you the ability to view data by employee, department or school. You will have secure access to key employee data at both a school and Trust level.
Proactive triggers and tracking
Triggers and alerts can be set up in VERA that are aligned with your sickness absence policy and actively bring absences to your attention long before they trigger an impact on pay. This is just one of the ways you can utilise the payroll and HR data on VERA to drive strategies and activities in your MAT.
