Issue - meetings

[Report of the Director of Children’s Services.  To be introduced by the Cabinet Member for Early Years, Children and Families]

Haringey Education Partnership's contract to provide the school improvement service expires on 31st August, 2021. The report outlines the considerations for extension of the contract for a further three years

The Cabinet Member for Early Years, Children and Families introduced the report which sought approval to extend Haringey Council’s contract with Haringey Education Partnership (HEP) to deliver school improvement services for three years from 1^st September 2021 to 31^st August 2024.

In response to a question from Councillor Barnes, the Cabinet Member explained that the report outlined which schools were a member of the HEP.  The schools which were not members were in academy chains and had their own arrangements for support.

RESOLVED that Cabinet

1.         Approve the extension of the Haringey Education Partnership contract for three years from 1^st September 2021 to 31^st August 2024 with a total contract value of £2.118m as allowed under Contract Standing Order 10.01.1(b).

Reasons for decision

In 2017, the Council began working in partnership with schools across the borough to develop detailed proposals for a schools led school improvement company, known as the Haringey Education Partnership (HEP), to drive school improvement from 1st September 2018. Haringey Education Partnership work in close collaboration and partnership with the Council to build on the existing strengths of schools in Haringey.  The model is aimed at creating an exceptional school system with a higher proportion of outstanding schools and continuing to tackle attainment gaps within and across schools in the borough.

The Council entered into a three-year contract with Haringey Education Partnership to deliver the Council’s ongoing statutory and strategic school improvement functions from September 2018. This contract expires on 31^st August 2021 and requires a decision to renew the contract to continue to the services provided by HEP in the next three academic years. HEP’s new three year contract will provide strategic and operational certainty for the Council (in delivering its statutory and strategic functions) and schools in the borough.

Alternative options considered

The contract is not extended and the Council insources its own school improvement service. The council is not resourced and structured to provide the existing level of service as the HEP.  If the Council were to insource the service it would need to provide the statutory school improvement services within the allocated DSG.

The Council outsources its statutory and strategic functions for school improvement to a private contractor. This would run counter to the Council’s preferred approach to service delivery. Any external provider would have no existing connection to the borough and have to establish relationships with Haringey schools from scratch. They would also need to raise significant income from Haringey schools to be sustainable and generate an operating profit.