How an independent payroll review gave a multi-academy trust the confidence and clarity to find a better service
Learning for Life Education Trust is a multi-academy trust comprising six schools and a central team, with 275 employees across the organisation. Like many MATs, they had been with the same outsourced payroll and HR provider since 2018 – but a combination of deteriorating service levels and technology that had failed to keep pace with the market had left them questioning whether it was time for a change.
Andy Goodsell, Chief Operations and Finance Officer, had already carried out a brief internal review the previous year, but they hadn’t had the internal resource or knowledge to give it the attention it needed. “We didn’t really know how our current provider compared to others,” he explains. “There are a lot of things some companies say they’re really good at, and then you do some more research and their customer service isn’t as good as what they’re saying.”
When Andy spotted Quarry Payroll Consulting’s independent review service for the education sector, he saw an opportunity to get a clearer, more informed picture.
What the review found
A portal stuck in the past
The trust’s current provider was operating on a portal that, in Andy’s words, “hasn’t changed since the dinosaurs were roaming the world.” There was no interface between the system and employees, no mobile functionality, and no integration with the trust’s MIS, and everything had to be entered manually. The provider had repeatedly promised to migrate them to a new, modern portal, but by the time of the review, that migration still hadn’t happened.
The review confirmed what the trust suspected: the system had not kept pace with what is now widely available in the education payroll market.
Specialist providers are now offering things such as API integrations with MIS platforms, mobile applications for overtime, expenses and absence management, and automated approval workflows that feed directly into payroll – all of which would eliminate the kind of double-keying that was consuming significant staff time at Learning for Life and reduce risk of errors.
The real cost of a cheap service
On paper, the trust’s per-employee monthly charge was competitive and well below the current market rate for specialist education payroll. But the review helped Andy see the bigger picture. “Yes, our current providers were the cheapest,” he says, “but they were well below par on what they delivered. We were getting a cheap service, but it wasn’t an adequate service. We had to invest a lot more time from our own staff, so it really wasn’t cheaper when you looked at the whole cost.”
The trust also had an early cut-off date of around the 10th of the month for starters, leavers and overtime, significantly earlier than many providers in the current market. Late changes were possible but came with additional charges, and in some cases were simply carried over to the following month’s payroll, creating reconciliation work downstream.
Accountability and service quality
Beyond the technology, the review identified a meaningful decline in the quality of service this academic year. The trust had no named contact managing their payroll each month and, on some occasions, could not get a response from the provider at all.
There was also a lack of proactive checking on the provider’s side. Andy explained, “We could have a data input error and they would just accept what we put on without challenging it,” Andy explains. “Even if there was an obvious error, they wouldn’t come back and say, ‘Did you mean to do that?'”
This absence of accountability and basic checks increased the risk of payroll errors making it through to payment, an unacceptable position for any organisation, and particularly for a multi-academy trust managing payroll across multiple schools and pension schemes.
The outcome
The review gave Learning for Life Education Trust both the evidence and the confidence to move forward with a structured provider selection process.
Our experienced consultant, Ian Davidson, identified a shortlist of specialist education payroll providers whose systems are built specifically for multi-academy trusts, and the trust is now in active dialogue with those providers ahead of a planned transition.
“It has given us an indication that yes, we’ve got to spend more money – but we’re investing in a better system and providing a better service to our employees,” says Andy. “The review was useful because it confirmed that although our current provider was the cheapest, there was a good reason for that. They haven’t invested.”
Beyond the provider shortlist, the review helped Andy and the team ask better questions during procurement. “Unlike the review we did last year, this time we know how our current provider compares to others, and we know what the right questions are.”
Perhaps most valuably, the independent nature of the review gave the trust confidence in the options being recommended. “Ian isn’t affiliated with anyone,” Andy notes. “That makes a real difference.”
Why this matters
Sometimes a payroll review confirms you should stay put.
Sometimes, as with Learning for Life Education Trust, it confirms that your instincts were right and gives you the knowledge and confidence to make a well-informed move.
At Quarry Payroll Consulting, our focus is on getting you to the right outcome, whether that means renegotiating with your current provider, improving processes, or finding a better fit elsewhere. As an independent service with no sales targets and no provider affiliations, the only agenda we have is yours.