Quarterly Breakfast Briefing for School Leaders | Fixed-Term Contracts and Contractor Management

Fixed-term contracts are popular among education providers for budgetary reasons and for covering maternity and sick leave. However, many education employers are getting caught out after not fully understanding fixed-term employees’ legal rights.

After two years or more, employees on fixed-term contracts acquire the same legal rights as permanent staff, including full unfair dismissal rights and the right to redundancy pay. After four years, fixed-contract staff have full legal rights and are considered part of your permanent staff.

In any case, fixed-term employees must not to be treated less favourably than permanent employees doing similar roles – unless there is an objective justification for doing so.

In our next Breakfast Briefing, we’ll be explaining everything you need to know about engaging workers on these sorts of contracts so that they can be utilised to serve your school’s needs without inviting legal issues.

In the second part of this session, we’ll be taking a close look at the importance of good contractor management. With schools now inviting contractors in to undertake necessary maintenance, inspections and other work which was postponed due to the pandemic, you’ll learn how to implement a robust contractor control procedure that ensures the proper selection, appointment, induction, training and control of your contractors – as well the consequences of getting it wrong.

Led by solicitor and Head of our Education Team, Jane Hallas, Principal Health & Safety Consultant Scott Crichton, and HR Consultant Simon Bellard, this free one-hour seminar will cover:

• Are fixed-term contracts still worth the paper they are written on?
• The associated benefits and risks of using fixed-term contracts
• Legislation and key areas for education clients to be aware of, including:
  • Continuity of employment and when successive fixed-term contracts may be deemed to be permanent;
  • Contractual terms;
  • Risks around termination;
  • Redundancies;
  • Less favourable treatment;
  • The impact on maternity leave.
• The importance of managing contractors and your legal duties
• Practical ways to implement robust contractor controls
• The consequences of poor contractor management
• Signposting to useful resources
• Live Q&A

There will be an opportunity to put questions to our experts during the session, so we invite you to think about your urgent queries ahead of time. This webinar is free to attend – to register, please complete the form opposite which will also subscribe you to future Breakfast Briefings for education leaders.