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Transition plans were put into place rolling into April 2018, there was a small lull in activity once phase one was complete as it was the School Easter holiday period, but that time was used to consider actions to transfer the remaining establishments, phase two migrations had a completion date by 31st August 2018. It was projected that the successful completion of the project and Cityserve redesign (a separate and parallel project) would release a cost saving to the public purse of approximately £0.9m by end of August 2018.

Throughout the whole project monthly board meetings were held with all of the project team, there was a timeline Gantt chart, action log and risk register that was reviewed each time we met.

Schools that remained in phase 2 were more difficult to transfer due to their resistance to the transition.  More of these engaged third party providers and the timescale of 31st March 2018 had not allowed for the process to be completed in that timeframe.

Some establishments engaged with a provider only to find during the time that the provider was unable to comply with the pension provision and were either unable or unwilling to gain ABS. We worked very positively with these Head Teachers and/ or Business Managers and were able to engage with them to take the service in house. Transfers were managed now individually and if we were able to fulfil our obligations as in phase 1 and confirm our compliancy audit complete transfers took place as soon as practicably possible.

Indemnities now had to be applied for on an individual basis as the blanket indemnity expired 31st March 2018, this did not mean it was not granted it merely added time (and work) to the transfer.

The collaborative process was managed through a procurement process and an external team of consultants, Minerva were appointed by BASBM to run the process following OJEU regulations and following consultation this in turn was split into two groups, schools that did not have to go through a full tender process due to being small value clients and schools that did have to go to full tender process.

Minerva worked very closely with us and a very tight timescale and plan was drawn up collectively. Following OJEU, a third party contractor was awarded after a cooling off period and the smaller establishments followed the compliance audit and transferred.  

We had continued to communicate positive messages to the remaining Head Teachers and Business Managers and had another week of open sessions at Head Office where they dropped in for information updates, the Minerva lead officer attended this consultation so that we were able to encourage schools that had not made any decisions about what their preferred option was, we offered alternatives to an in house provision with a contractor that had been approved in the process. This allowed for the timescale of transfers to be achieved and not delayed by an unknown path.

As soon as Schools chose and awarded contractors compliance audits were followed and they transferred on an individual basis when they were completed.

The blanket indemnity for equal pay claims that was secured at Cabinet for schools that completed by 31st March 2018 had expired and each school had to apply on an individual basis, our business lead provided the paperwork and worked with Legal and finance to ensure compliance.  This did not mean the indemnity was not granted but merely had to be applied for singly. None of the indemnities was refused, all were signed off by Legal services on behalf of Birmingham City council, and however it added a period of time to the transfer.

As external contractors were involved ABS had to be applied for from LGPS and another set of paperwork had to be completed and processed.

The compliance toolkit ensured we had followed all steps to successful transfer both legally and BCC compliant:

• Consultation, informal, formal and joint
• ELI data verified as correct
• ABS, application, Trade Unions were sufficiently satisfied if the incoming contractor had applied to join
• Indemnity had to be applied for and approved before final transfer
• Personnel details provided to the new provider by the staff themselves to protect data of the individual and ensure Cityserve were compliant with GDPR
• Reintec equipment either transferred by agreement or removed from site
• HR payroll was either transferred from Cityserve to BCC school’s payroll and codes changed or employees were made leavers to be set up on an external payroll dependent on pathway
• All Cityserve departments notified of dates of transferred to eliminate any costs carrying forward

Transfer dates in phase 2 and numbers of sites

• April 2018
• May 2018
• June 2018
• July 2018
• August 2018

Issues during phase 2 and remaining in August 2018

This cohort of schools had the most queries we had to solve, communication was key and although we had held joint communication and consultations we made a decision it had been necessary for individual meetings, this had allowed for us to discuss bespoke queries and solutions to transfer the site.

Individual issues:

• Sudden performance issue with a member of the team
• Previous unknown issues of service delivery by Cityserve
• Financial issues
• Unwillingness of the site to take on cleaning

During this cohort, 32 Children’s Centres and Nurseries had moved from BCC to Birmingham Children’s Trust, a data cleanse of Cityserve payroll had highlighted 54 Assistant caretakers/ cleaners employed in these establishments who had eligibility to transfer to the trust and partners.

Children’s Centres themselves were in a restructure to go to Cabinet and consultation showed us not all posts were in scope to transfer, Compulsory redundancy had to be initiated and Section 188 notice served to 4 individuals.

By closing down the issues on an individual basis, by 31st August 2018 all cleaning had migrated and all cleaning personnel transferred from Cityserve payroll, realising the cost saving to the public purse of £0.9m.