Hi Andrea

I work in a MAT where HR is centralised (we no longer have SBMs in schools), and cover is arranged locally by the schools as they manage absence (e.g. agree time off, take the calls if someone is off sick etc) so it goes hand in hand - cover is usually arranged by one of the office team, in a small number of schools one of the SLT do it.

There is no right or wrong answer to this - it's what suits the business. It can land on HR's desk as it can be seen as a people/recruitment task, particularly where knowledge of working hours, pay etc is advantageous.

I have offered to take this on centrally, but our HR office opens at 8am, and the schools did not want to wait until this time to arrange cover in cases of sickness as the "good" agency workers would have already been taken. I offered to open the office earlier if the schools covered the staffing cost for this, but again they declined so it has stayed within the schools.

Rgds
K

In reply to Kimberly:

Thanks for such a clear response, Kimberly 

In the independent schools where I've worked, this has not been an HR task - it's been a teacher role, often combined with timetabling/duties. I agree with Kimberly that it absolutely could be an HR function, but also recognise that it's a lot of work - and needs to be carried out usually from about 7am, to make sure the school is fully staffed for the day ahead, particularly in senior schools.

While I wouldn't be looking to absorb it into my team currently, I can see quite a lot of advantages to managing the absence aspects of this consistently - sometimes I've been aware that pragmatism gets in the way of careful absence management, and can mask a problem that is developing.

Good luck.

In my school, it's one of the teachers who arranges all cover but we still process leave and CPD requests through HR and let him know what cover is needed. We still log sickness absences to monitor that and send out self-cert and return to work forms.

We are a large LA maintained secondary school (1200 students). We have a Cover Manager who supervises a team of Cover Supervisors and also deploys our own bank of Supply Teachers.