elliswhittam.com/education

Employment Law, HR and Health & Safety Services for

Education Providers

Be secure. Achieve more.

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absence, performance, discipline and strategic issues such as restructuring, redundancies and TUPE. And of course, you can call on us for support as often as you need, whenever you like, all for a fixed fee.

Protecting the health, safety and wellbeing of anyone affected by your activities is naturally a top priority for education providers too. It’s not always easy to determine where your legal obligations begin and end and it’s even more challenging to ensure compliance. With support both on-site and off-site from Ellis Whittam’s team of highly qualified Health & Safety Consultants, you can put these worries aside. In fact, we have so much confidence in the quality of service that we provide, we

will act as your legally required Competent Person.

With the support and inspiration of Ellis Whittam, you have the secure foundations for achieving excellence.

Achieving excellence and securing legal compliance in the way you manage your people and their wellbeing is not easy. With frequent changes to legislation and the continual raising of the bar for best practice, increasing numbers of education providers are turning to Ellis Whittam to help them meet these challenges head on.

As the leading provider of employment law, HR and health and safety services to not-for-profit employers, we have vast experience of taking even the best run organisations to the next level and putting those who are facing challenges on the right track.

We have a large, experienced team of legally qualified Employment Law Advisers with extensive experience of supporting education providers, one of whom will be your named, personal contact. You will be helped with all your employment law and HR challenges such as sickness

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Michael, Senior Health & Safety Consultant

Health, Safety & WellbeingWe have so much confidence in our service, we will act as your Competent Person.

We provide an action based service rather than merely performing audits and handing back reports. We help you implement measures to meet your legal obligations and protect the health, safety and wellbeing of everyone affected by your activities. Our proactive support can help protect you from prosecution and provide the foundation for continuous improvement.

Our unique approach involves preparing a Prioritised Safety Action Plan based on EW’s specially developed General Risk Assessment for education providers. Our support covers all aspects of your operations from high level health and safety management systems, through to facilities management issues, the many risks associated with curriculum areas such as Science, PE and Design, and numerous site specific issues such as playgrounds, infection control, and security.

Service Highlights

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• A highly qualified EW Health & Safety Consultant with experience of supporting education providers will act as your legally required Competent Person.

• We conduct your General Risk Assessment at your premises.

• We develop and help implement your Prioritised Safety Action Plan, Health & Safety Policy and Employee Health & Safety Handbook. This is particularly important if you have become an academy, thereby taking the employer’s responsibility off the local authority.

• We provide secure access to a comprehensive online resource where you can access all your documents and a library of practical guides.

• We guarantee a minimum number of visits to your premises, not merely to inspect but to help you implement positive change.

• Emergency assistance is provided in the case of, for example, Health and Safety Executive visits and accident investigations.

• You have access to unlimited telephone and email support.

• In the event of a serious accident we investigate, liaise with the authorities and defend you against any prosecutions.

• We provide Legal Expenses Insurance that covers your legal costs in case of prosecution and pays your Fee For Intervention (FFI) charges from the HSE.

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Our Education Team comprises some of the most knowledgeable, talented and experienced Employment Law Advisers in the UK. They can help you implement best practice and ensure legal compliance so you can focus on what you really want to be doing.

Whether it’s for strategic advice, to guide you step-by-step through a problem or just to give you the reassurance of a second opinion, your own named Employment Law Adviser is just a phone call or email away. And because this is a fixed fee service, you can contact us as often as you need to – it won’t cost you a penny more.

Employment Law & HRUnlimited, fixed fee support from the education experts.

Service Highlights

• You receive truly unlimited support for a fixed fee enabling you to budget with confidence years in advance.

• You are allocated a named, legally qualified Employment Law Adviser from our Education Team as your dedicated point of contact.

• We review and update your contracts of employment, ensuring where appropriate they are compliant with National Agreements.

• We review and update your Employee Handbook to ensure it matches best practice for education providers.

• We handle all your employment law challenges including disciplinaries, grievances, managing sickness absence, dismissals, attendance, performance, maternity, TUPE, redundancy, agency workers and much more.

• We provide regular bulletins, updates and online training.

• If you have moved from local authority control to academy status, we will handle your TUPE challenges and any changes to terms and conditions of employment that you may be looking to introduce.

• We draft bespoke letters and documents on your behalf.

• You have secure online access to a suite of employment law and HR materials as well as your handbooks, contracts and copies of correspondence between Ellis Whittam and your organisation.

• You can choose to record telephone calls, which can also be stored online.

• Our Legal Expenses Insurance provides complete protection in the event of an Employment Tribunal. We cover all your defence costs and any settlement costs or compensation awards.

Amarjit, Senior Employment Law Adviser

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“I have recommended Ellis Whittam to a number of schools, both primary and secondary. I don’t do this lightly and only when I am confident that I am endorsing a high quality service. Choosing Ellis Whittam has proved to be an excellent decision.”Moira Griffiths-Parr, Director of Finance and Business Administration, St. Margaret’s Church of England Academy

“On conversion to an Academy we were especially keen to ensure that we had strong legal advice on all HR matters and so we felt that we needed to have advisers who could offer more than the traditional Local Authority HR adviser. The support from Ellis Whittam has enabled us to ensure our policies are up to date and our procedures are suited to our needs and following best practice, rather than imposed by the LA.”

Jane Elkins, Director of Finance, Amersham School

Should you require support with a strategic review or if you are dealing with specific workforce challenges, our HR Consultancy service can identify innovative, cost effective and sustainable solutions for you.

Our Occupational Health Services include medical screening, physiotherapy, ergonomics, managing stress and wellbeing.

We use our extensive expertise to help you conduct Investigations into cases such as harassment or discrimination and to resolve disputes with Mediation between parties.

We regularly deliver Employment Law & HR Training classes, drawing on case studies amassed from our extensive experience supporting education providers. We can deliver specially devised courses for you on topics such as Bullying & Harassment, Conflict Resolution, Equality & Diversity and Disciplinary & Grievance.

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Jane, Employment Law Principal & Sarah, Senior Employment Law Adviser

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We provide a range of Audit & Inspection services, including Fire Risk Assessments, asbestos surveys, PAT testing, Legionella risk assessments and maintenance of fire alarms and emergency lighting.

Our Occupational Health Services help ensure that you are providing an appropriate environment to protect the wellbeing of your employees.

Drawing on our experience of working with thousands of employers, we deliver Health & Safety Training on a huge range of topics including General Health & Safety Awareness, Risk Assessments, IOSH Managing / Directing / Working Safely, Manual Handling and Fire Marshal Training.

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“Ellis Whittam have proved to be invaluable to us. Their expertise, speed of response and above all knowledge of the education sector is excellent. Their training provision, especially related to health and safety, has been very relevant. Just knowing that they are there to give a speedy response to any HR issue has given us a lot of reassurance.” Maria Heywood, Chair of Governors, Abbey Gate College

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Laura, Employment Law Adviser

Our innovative e-learning system delivers your essential health and safety training to staff via the internet using videos and interactive testing. This approach can save up to 80% compared with the costs of traditional classroom based learning.

You no longer need to take whole teams away from the workplace to deliver training and you do not need any special equipment. There are no set up or ongoing costs.

This is an entirely online system and the courses can be accessed wherever broadband is available. This is of particular benefit to part time employees and volunteers who can complete the training at their own pace and in their own time, even at home.

You can set your own pass levels and the reporting suite gives you real time views of who has completed their training, scores achieved and any re-sits required.

We offer more than forty modules covering a huge variety of topics such as COSHH, Display Screen Equipment, Fire Safety, Food Hygiene, Slips Trips & Falls and Manual Handling. Most courses are accredited by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (ROSPA).

We are also introducing HR modules covering such topics as Equality & Diversity.

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“We really value the service from Ellis Whittam. They understand every detail of employment law and they know how to apply it to the school environment. They are also extremely quick - there are no long delays waiting for someone to get back to you!”Ms R Thomas, Headteacher, Sudley Infant School

“If I have a query, I don’t think twice about picking up the phone. It is so reassuring to have access to the professionals around the clock and to receive advice that is always delivered in a language which is easy to follow and understand.”Carole Ellis, Bursar, Fulham Prep School

“We have been particularly impressed by both the knowledge and the personality of our Health & Safety Consultant. Having this sort of expertise on hand gives us great peace of mind and being able to access it at a fixed fee rate is a real plus point where budgets are concerned.”Helen Nellist, Vice Principal, West Cheshire College

Contact Us0845 226 8393

elliswhittam.com/education

enquiries@elliswhittam.com

Woodhouse, Church Lane, Aldford, Chester CH3 6JD

Twitter: @elliswhittam

Facebook: facebook.com/elliswhittam