Reducing workload, saving money, and improving safer recruitment compliance in education

By Fiona Baker, Director of Safeguarding at The Edwin Group

How do you speed up the process of recruitment whilst ensuring the safety of children and young people continues to be of the utmost importance?

With an unprecedented shortage of teaching and support staff applying for roles in schools and trusts, we must do everything possible to ease the burden of a clunky, time consuming and often manual recruitment process for applicants of teaching and support staff roles.

Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) delays, information incorrectly inputted at the time of application, references not being responded to or offering a reason for leaving, along with safeguarding information are just a few of the areas of frustration within the safer recruitment process. Added to this is the need to come into school and provide copies of identity information for it to then be photocopied and filed. For multi-academy trusts, your needs as the single employer across a group of schools means you want to ensure there is a coherent and consistent process both at school and MAT level. This is not only a common frustration but can have serious consequences when things go wrong or processes aren’t joined up.

So, what can we as HR professionals do to safely speed up our processes?

I started my search for a safer recruitment platform in 2021, one that performed all of the necessary right to work (RTW), Teacher Regulation Agency (TRA) and Teacher Reference Number (TRN) checks, and processed online DBS applications. In addition, it needed to offer a referencing portal and application storage, all in one place. I wanted to end jumping around from a spreadsheet and logging in to several different systems, I needed to reduce the administrative burden for my colleagues and, most importantly, I needed applicants to feel secure when giving us their data and for our partner schools to be confident that we had a rigorous vetting and clearance process.

My search ended with Llama ID

Llama ID is an end-to-end safer recruitment platform built purposefully for the education sector, with safety in vetting at the forefront of the build. What has a llama got to do with safer recruitment I hear you ask? Llamas protect their herd. If you put a llama into a field with other animals, they will always protect them from predators.

My entire safer recruitment process has been overhauled. In the last twelve months, we have safely registered over 10,000 teachers and support staff using Llama ID. It has given my colleagues back valuable time and reduced waiting times for new staff to clear the compliance process by 20 days. If an applicant has a DBS on the Update Service, we can safely approve them to start work, in less than 24 hours.

Gone are the numerous spreadsheets, gone are the multiple logins to different platforms, and gone are the waiting times on references due to the automatic chase functionality. As a result, we are able to get teachers and support staff in front of classes far sooner than was ever previously the case.

We were thrilled with the impact Llama ID had on our organisation - so thrilled that we bought the company!

The Edwin Group is now proud to launch our tried and tested platform for safer recruitment to the wider education sector, sharing the tangible benefits that I’ve been able to evidence as Director of Safeguarding.

Fiona has worked in the education sector since 2006. She is passionate about the safety and protection of children, young adults and vulnerable adults across The Edwin Group. Fiona has been a key part of the Llama ID journey through her use of the platform across Edwin Supply.