Governance Recruitment Service

Tender description

Background: The Government is committed to delivering education excellence everywhere. We want every child to attend a good school to get the best start in life and enable them to reach their full potential regardless of their background. In an increasingly academised, school-led, self-improving system, robust school governance is crucial to complement growing school autonomy and the growth of multi-academy trusts. The Government’s vision and expectations for the governance of schools and MATs is set out in the Governance Handbook. The Government has for many years funded support to governing boards to help them recruit the high calibre people they need to deliver effective governance. Going forward, we want to provide stability through multi-year funding through a contract covering four financial years, commencing on 1 September 2016 and ending 31 March 2020, with the possibility of a further one year contract extension in 2020-21. Brief description of service: The service will: • Help boards recruit the highest calibre people possible. • Support the maximum possible number of governing boards within available resources. • Prioritise the boards most in need of finding skilled people and areas of the country where education standards and capacity to improve are weakest, whilst maintaining support to any school wishing to use the service. • Provide effective screening, matching, and as far as possible training, to maximise the impact of the people introduced onto boards. • Engage more employers to support governance through for example encouraging their staff to be involved in governance. • Raise awareness across the system of how to structure and populate a highly skilled governing board. • Establish a new national channel through which governing boards can recruit an experienced and skilled chair. Estimated value: DfE estimate the contract value to be up to £710k between 1 September 2016 and the end of the financial year 2016-17, and up to £1m in each financial year to 2019-20, inclusive of all VAT. The contract will include break clauses at the end of each financial year and an option to extend for one additional financial year. Length of contract: A period of 4 years (ending 31 March 2020), including break clauses (related to KPIs) at the end of each year and the option to extend for up to a further year at the end of the contract. The scope of this contract may be extended following future, as yet unknown, developments which fall within the scope of the original contract aims, up to a further value of no more than 50% of the original contract value without the need to tender. Any such changes including revised costs would be agreed with the contractor.