JNC - Teacher Booker System 25 03 25
Renfrewshire Council · 25 March 2025
Back to Renfrewshire Council Joint Negotiating Committee for Teaching Staff — 25 March 2025 and its agenda
Text extracted from the council's PDF. Layout and reading order may differ from the original.
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Agenda Item .......... Renfrewshire Joint Negotiating Committee for Teachers To: Renfrewshire Joint Negotiating Committee for Teachers On: 25 March 2025 Report by Joint Secretary (Management Side) Teacher Booker Supply Booking System 1. Background 1.1. On 22nd April 2025, we will be introducing a new electronic supply booking system within Renfrewshire Schools, called Teacher Booker (TB). We will manage all supply cover bookings for Teachers, Early Learning & Childcare Officers, and Early Learning Support Workers via the new system. What’s Changing? 1.2. We are modernising and improving our current ways of working, by moving away from manual driven processing (examples - email requests from schools to HQ, maintaining contact details and availability via excel files, time consuming texts/phone calls to and from supply staff, time delays for schools filling cover requests, and delays to paying supply staff) to using a digital solution, that is quick and easy to use, provides greater flexibility to manage cover requests at school level, and, provides instant communication to supply staff. The Key Changes 1) Supply staff will have the responsibility to update their own availability within their electronic calendar in Teacher Booker. 2) Once a cover request has been processed and submitted to ‘live’, the system will instantaneously identify any supply matches based on the criteria used e.g. dates, cover reason, subjects etc. The school can then ‘auto’ invite matched supply Teachers to express an interest in covering the position. 3) Once the supply Teacher has been selected, they will receive electronic confirmation of the offer which includes school details, dates of cover, rate of pay, who to report to etc. Please note, that should the absence duration extend past the initial requirement, the school will update the cover request by changing the end date to a later date. The supply Teacher will receive instant electronic notification of any changes. 4) The supply Teacher will be able to see the details of every job they have been assigned to and covered. The system will provide them will their supply teacher record of employment history.
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5) Supply staff will no longer need to complete a timesheet via Business World, as a timesheet will automatically be created within TB to reflect the cover request. 6) This will still require approval from Budget Manager i.e. Head Teacher (or delegated officer *). At this stage, the timesheet can be amended for example if cover reason has changed, or wrong cost code has been selected. 7) Based on agreed national rules, the system will be set up to pay supply teachers 5.5 hrs for up to 2 days, related to non-class contact time, and 7 hrs thereafter. The Head Teacher (or delegated officer) will have the ability to override the hours paid, should operational circumstances merit the uplift to 7 hrs, e.g. related to planning tasks. * Note: The Senior Service Delivery Officers (SSDOs) supporting ASN/ELCC/PS will be able to approve on behalf of their Heads, which is currently not an option due to hierarchy set up within BW. There will be greater flexibility to respond to budget manager’s absences around payroll deadlines, thus ensuring supply staff get paid on time without delay or the need for manual payment requests being sent to payroll. Once approved, these will be uploaded to Business World for payment. 1.3. There are 4 main role types that we will be used within Renfrewshire, and users may be assigned more than one dependant on their job:- 1) Administrator – initial recruitment of and manages supply pool employee data in line with the starter, leaver, and change processes (Employee Services staff) 2) Poster – can create and manage cover requests (School staff) 3) Approver – can approve and amend supply worker’s timesheets (Heads or approved Delegated Officers) 4) Viewers – run reports only (HR, Finance Partners etc.) 1.4. Any user of the system (operators and supply staff) will require to have a licence. Due to licence costs, schools have been assigned 3 licences each (2 for Standalone ELCCs). During the school holiday periods, in the absence of the HT in the 52 nursery classes, the office staff and business support school’s management team will support with processing cover requests and approving timesheets. We have compared with other councils using the system and Glasgow CC assign 3 licences to each school. They are over 3 times larger than RC and have provided positive feedback. The Planned Timeline Oct 2024 – Feb 2025 – ‘As Is’, ‘To Be’ and Information Gathering & System Build w/c 3rd & 10th Mar – Access to Test System, User Acceptance Testing, and Preparing RC specific Training Guide
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w/c 17th Mar – Supply and School staff will receive a warm-up letter providing details of what’s changing and what happens next. Load data files will be transferred for ‘live’ system set up w/c 24th Mar – Validate ‘live’ system and carry out Webinar Training for Supply and School staff w/c 31st Mar– Supply and School staff will receive invitation to create their TB account w/c 7th Apr - Chaser emails for staff who have not activated their account. Noting: it is spring break / easter holiday period w/c 14th Apr – School staff will begin to post jobs to start from Tuesday 22nd April 2025 w/c 21st Apr (Tues 22nd Apr)– ‘Go Live’ for all schools 2. Recommendation 2.1 The JNC is asked to note this report.