Update to MI 100/09 'New School Staff Recruitment Services from TES and DCSF'

We now have full details of the DCSF's proposed Schools Recruitment Service due to be launched in late September.
Having considered its possible merits we're pleased to tell you that Norfolk County Council (Teacher Recruitment Strategy, HR) has decided to sign up to this new service as a LA, as are many other LAs, on behalf of all those schools who buy in to HR Services Package A, B or C (almost all schools) for a 12 month trial period.
This means schools will have access to this service if they wish to use it at no cost for that period whilst we evaluate its effectiveness. (The cost for individual schools to sign up would be between £46 and £855 + VAT dependent upon their staff headcount.)

The basis of the new Service is an online recruitment system that will increase the speed and efficiency of the recruitment process for Schools, reducing advertising costs, administration costs and reducing the time burden associated with recruitment.
Each school will have their own suite of dedicated website pages within the main Schools Recruitment Service to promote individual employment related information to prospective applicants. This will enable applicants to find out more about yourself as an employer and your 'offering for them in general' as well as easily establishing what vacancies you have available at any point in time. The service will cover both teaching and non-teaching posts.
In addition to advertising jobs and allowing applicants to apply online the system will allow schools to book and formulate advertisements; filter, track and respond to applications; and track the candidate's progress from application right through to appointment.
The service also aims to build up a talent pool for schools to search allowing a reduction of their spend on advertising.

We believe that until this service becomes established schools will use it as an additional no-cost recruitment tool but will continue to advertise in their favoured media and monitor the source of their applicants. This will continue to be done by sending your advert first to the LA Recruitment Team, before being forwarded to Rileys, thereby ensuring your substantial discount is maintained.

Further details of how the service will work and associated training arrangements will follow in the autumn term.

Additional information about the service can also be found on
www.schoolsrecruitment.dcsf.gov.uk.

Steve Hardy
Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy Manager
Norfolk County Council, Children's Services