Education Bulletin - October 2018

In this month's edition:

• Labour Party Policy: back to a future of a fully maintained school system?
• How is your GDPR Compliance?
• Exclusions not made by head
• Consent for Property Transactions for Academies
• Related party transactions. Again.
• Postponing Disciplinary Hearings
• Acquittals and Enhanced Criminal Record Certificates
• Brief Alerts October 2018

Labour Party Policy: back to a future of a fully maintained school system?

Last year we reported on the 10 principles of Labour’s Charter for a National Education Service. On Monday 24 September Angela Rayner’s speech at the 2018 Labour Party Conference provided some further insight into Labour’s vision for a National Education Service which included significant proposed change for more autonomous types of school.

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How is your GDPR Compliance?

By now the long awaited General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) should be fully part of the daily working of your school; but just in case you are not sure, here are some things to check at the start of the year and where to go to get advice.

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Exclusions not made by head

In the middle of the growing confusing row over exclusions and exclusion-like activities, some very basic issues can get overlooked. Everyone is now clear that exclusion can only be on disciplinary grounds but is it equally clear that only the head teacher (“HT”) of a school can exclude a pupil and that if the exclusion is made by any other person it risks being challenged on the grounds that it is unlawful? Whilst this may sound easy to observe, the potential for schools to get this wrong is increasing.

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Consent for Property Transactions for Academies

Academies will usually enjoy ownership or control of some or all of the school land and buildings. This will often include unused playing fields and caretaker’s houses, which academies should rightly consider how best to utilise in pursuance of their educational mission. Sometimes, the right thing will be to sell or lease such property in order to obtain some value for an asset that may be a drain on resource. The property that an academy owns is not, though, open to be disposed of at the academy’s will. It has been created by public money and is constrained by considerations of public benefit.

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Related party transactions. Again.

Once again how academy trusts use public funds is splashed across the media. This time it is Bright Tribe Trust that is accused of misusing those funds in a variety of ways, including allegedly making payments to companies connected with founder Michael Dwan. What those allegations reveal is an ongoing interest in the media, the public and government with connected relationships between academy trusts, their founders and associated companies.

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Postponing Disciplinary Hearings

For an employer it is frustrating for a disciplinary hearing to be postponed because of the unavailability of the union officer chosen as a representative by the member of staff. Why not go ahead without the union representative? And if the member of staff then refuses to attend, why not go ahead anyway?

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Acquittals and Enhanced Criminal Record Certificates

Should you expect to find included in an Enhanced Criminal Record Certificate (ECRC) the fact that someone has been tried for rape and acquitted, when the person concerned claims that this will permanently bar them from employment? How should a school react to this information?

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Brief Alerts October 2018

• Correction
• Ofsted Wars
• Autonomy and Wilshaw’s Straw in the Wind
• NSPCC and Internet Regulation
• DBS Checks
• Saving Money
• Gender pay gap
• Bunsen Burner Mats and a Warning
• And finally

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GDPR Services for Academy Trusts and Maintained Schools

GDPR Support Bank of Hours

The Client can buy a five hour support package at a blended rate of £230 per hour (plus VAT) and can add to in units of 2 hours. Any hours not used after 2 years expire. As this is offered at a reduced hourly rate, the retainer discount does not apply.

This product is designed for:

clients who still need help with implementing the GDPR clients who have not signed up to our retainer service but will need routine GDPR assistance (perhaps to support the DPO) clients who are signed up to the retainer service but are likely to have GDPR support needs going beyond the limit of their legal retainer and who are looking for certainty on costs and a cheaper rate than our standard hourly rates.

The GDPR Guidance Pack Updating Service

This is for existing purchasers of the GDPR Guidance Pack. When you purchased our GDPR Guidance Pack, you received the benefit of updates until 25th May 2018. We are offering the opportunity to renew this for a further year until 25th May 2019.

This further update service costs £300 plus VAT (or 250+ VAT for existing SK Legal Retainer clients) for the further one year period ending 25 May 2019 (no retainer discount applies).

The update service will include monthly updates (except August) and GDPR Guidance Pack updating, when we deem that changes to the Pack are required.

We envisage that there will be lots of new guidance to share over the next year and we will interpret this for the academy trust/school context, making helpful observations and recommendations.

If you would like to renew for a further year, please email EducationGDPR@stoneking.co.uk. If your school or trust has not purchased the GDPR Guidance pack and you are interested in finding out more, please email EducationGDPR@stoneking.co.uk.

Stone King Education Retainer Clients

One of your benefits to the retainer service is access to an area of our website exclusively for retainer clients. A recent survey showed that some of you were not aware of this valuable benefit. The area includes a suite of template school and staff policies, guidance documents, your regional office contact sheets and back copies of our monthly newsletters. We are making improvements and adding to the area all the time. If you do not know your login details please get in touch with our Marketing Team at MarketingWebsiteRequests@stoneking.co.uk who will be able to retrieve them for you. If you have any other queries, please contact your retainer manager. Finally, don’t forget to pick up your free event code from that part of the website to secure your free access to all of our Stone King seminars.