It may be convenient for some schools to purchase services, e.g. HR, insurance and appeal panels from the local authority. Most schools will be familiar with the need to carry out competitive tendering exercises – as an independent school this will now also need to be taken into account when contracting with the local authority.

The extent to which a local authority continues to make retained services available to academies post-conversion will vary locally.

The Government has said publicly that if a school was able to access services from a local authority as a maintained school before conversion, then it should still be able to enjoy the benefit of those same services post transfer. However, as things stand currently, Parliament has not passed any legislative measures which disapply the Public Contract Regulations 2006.
Please email us for a copy of our straightforward guide to procurement law, or contact a member of our highly experienced academies team for further information on public procurement.

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