WCST01.20 - Westcountry Schools Trust Provision of HR System & Payroll Service

1. This tender opportunity has been issued by Westcountry Schools Trust (“the Trust”) and Contractors are invited to tender for the provision of a HR System and Fully Managed Payroll Service (“the Service”). Full details of all contract requirements are given in Document 2. Specification of Requirement. 2. The Trust is seeking a Contractor to deliver a service that will manage all aspects of payroll, provide a centralised, efficient and compliant HR system, pension (TPS/LGPS) returns, reporting and meet all end of year EOY) requirements. 3. The Contractor will provide a flexible service, staffed with suitably experienced personnel and have adequate resource in place to fulfil service requirements. 4. The Contractor shall provide: a. Centralised payroll across multiple academies and decentralised runs per school. b. A dedicated support service/Helpdesk that provides direct assistance to each school within the Trust, enabling schools to access support independently without the need to route queries through the Trust’s central HR team. c. Support for education-specific pension schemes (e.g., teachers’ pensions, LGPS) and funders. d. A HR system that handles recruitment, onboarding, absence, performance, multi-site reporting and single central record (SCR) - there must be the capability to populate SCR tracker, either through and API or an import/export function. e. Integration between HR and payroll so data only enters once (reduces errors). f. Cloud, secure, with self-service portals for staff (payslips, bank details, leave requests), that is operational on all platforms (phone, tablet etc). g. Robust compliance (HMRC RTI, auto-enrolment, GDPR) and audit trails. h. Reporting at Trust level (roll-up from all schools) for headcount, turnover, cost-centres etc. 5. The contract start date will be 20th February 2026 , with the system go live 1 June 2026 and is to be for a period of three (3) years with the possible extensions (3 +2+1+1).

12/01/2026 12:00:00

79631000-6  Personnel and payroll services
79211110-0  Payroll management services
48450000-7  Time accounting or human resources software package