Case Study: How Four West Yorkshire Multi-Academy Trusts Replaced Multiple Agencies With One Recruitment Partner

Summary

Four multi-academy trusts in West Yorkshire were spending a combined £4 million a year on supply, long-term, and permanent staffing across multiple agencies, with inconsistent rates and no single view of compliance. NextGen Teachers took on all four as a single key-account partner. Across 684 roles in 12 months, 620 were filled, an emergency booking is now turned around in an average of 13 minutes, and a CV for a long-term role lands within 5 hours.

The challenge: four trusts, multiple agencies, no single view

Four multi-academy trusts across West Yorkshire needed a reliable recruitment partner to manage supply, long-term and permanent staffing across all of their schools.

Each school was effectively buying recruitment on its own terms. That created four problems the trusts could all name:

• Unpredictable cost. The four trusts spent a combined £4 million on agency staffing over 12 months, split across a range of suppliers on a range of rates. Nobody could see the whole picture.
• Inconsistent rates. Different agencies charged different amounts for the same job title, sometimes within the same trust.
• Fragmented compliance. Vetting and right-to-work checks sat with whichever agency happened to supply the staff member, making central assurance difficult.
• Internal workload. School business managers and trust leaders were absorbing the admin of briefing agencies, chasing candidates and managing payroll queries.

The requirement was straightforward: fill vacancies quickly, absorb fluctuating demand, and take recruitment admin off the trusts' plates.

The solution: a dedicated key-account model

NextGen Teachers put in place a single, dedicated key-account recruitment model across all four trusts. In practice, that meant:

• A targeted local talent pool built specifically around the trusts' schools and their catchments, rather than a generic regional database.
• Trust rate cards with transparent, agreed pricing for every job title and level, so the same role costs the same across every school in the trust.
• Regular contact with trust leaders to track staffing demand and spot patterns before they become vacancies.
• Weekly availability updates listing exclusive candidates ready to work.
• 24/7 support, including out-of-hours emergency cover for same-day absence.
• End-to-end management of sourcing, candidate marketing, payroll and full compliance checks, keeping every worker vetted and up to date.

NextGen Teachers is a DfE-approved supplier on the Government Commercial Agency's RM6376 framework and holds APSCo Compliance+ accreditation, so the compliance standard applied across the four trusts is externally audited rather than self-declared.

The results: 620 placements across 684 roles

• Long-term roles worked: 52
• Long-term placements made: 39
• Average CV turnaround, long-term roles: 5 hours
• Short-term roles received (1-5 days): 632
• Short-term placements made: 581
• Average turnaround, emergency bookings: 13 minutes

Total roles: 684
Total placements: 620 (91%)

Beyond the numbers, the trusts reported four changes:

• Faster time-to-fill, which means less disruption to teaching and learning when a class would otherwise be uncovered or split.
• Lower internal cost, with candidate marketing, sourcing, payroll administration and compliance management all moved out of school and trust offices.
• Consistent quality, because the same team supplies every school and already knows each setting.
• A single accountable partner, giving trust leadership one number to call and one place to see spend, fill rates and compliance status.

What made the difference

Three things, in the trusts' own assessment:

Rate cards removed the negotiation. Once pricing is fixed by job title across the trust, individual schools stop bidding against each other in a tight market and central finance can forecast.

Proactive pooling beat reactive advertising. Because the talent pool is built continuously against known school profiles, most roles are filled from people already vetted and already familiar with the trust, rather than starting a search from zero.

Out-of-hours cover matters more than headline rates. A 7am call about an unexpected absence is the moment a recruitment partner is actually tested. A 13-minute average turnaround on emergency bookings is what stops a Tuesday morning from becoming a staffing problem for the whole school.

Could your trust run recruitment this way?

If your schools are each briefing their own agencies, paying different rates for the same roles and chasing compliance across multiple suppliers, there is a simpler way to run it.

Our Multi-Academy Trust Partnership gives your trust one team, one point of contact, and one agreed rate card across every school, with a talent pool built around your settings before you need it.

Explore the Trust Partnership.

Prefer to talk it through? Tell us how many schools you have and where the pressure points are, and we'll show you what a partnership would look like for your trust, including indicative rate cards and fill-rate benchmarks for comparable trusts.

Get in touch · Download the trust brochure

West Yorkshire: 0113 205 6401 · Westyorkshire@nextgenteachers.co.uk | South East: 0333 241 9693 · south@nextgenteachers.co.uk 

FAQs

What is a preferred trust partnership?

A preferred trust partnership is an arrangement where a multi-academy trust works with one recruitment agency as its single, consistent supplier across all of its schools, rather than each school managing its own list of agencies. It typically includes agreed rate cards, a named account team, centralised compliance and a talent pool built around the trust's specific settings.

How much can a multi-academy trust save by consolidating agency spend?

Savings come from three places: consistent rates across schools instead of varying agency pricing, removal of internal costs for candidate marketing, sourcing, payroll and compliance administration, and fewer unfilled days requiring expensive last-minute cover. The four West Yorkshire trusts in this case study were previously spending £4 million a year across multiple suppliers with inconsistent rates.

How quickly can NextGen Teachers fill an emergency supply booking? Across this partnership, emergency bookings were turned around in an average of 13 minutes. CVs for long-term roles were sent within an average of 5 hours.

Does a single recruitment partner work for trusts with very different schools? Yes. NextGen Teachers supports primary, secondary, SEN, college and sixth form settings within the same trust, covering qualified teachers, teaching assistants and support staff, and behaviour, pastoral, inclusion and SEMH roles. The model is built around understanding each school individually while keeping the commercial and compliance framework consistent.

Is NextGen Teachers on a government framework?

Yes. NextGen Teachers is a DfE-approved supplier on the Government Commercial Agency's RM6376 framework and holds APSCo Compliance+ accreditation, supplying maintained schools, independent schools, academies and multi-academy trusts.

Which areas does NextGen Teachers cover? NextGen Teachers operates from offices in Leeds (West Yorkshire) and Crawley (South East England).