Your guide to HR and payroll software procurement in education

An HR system gives you the tools to manage the full employee lifecycle, from hire to retire.  

The best systems automate the heavy lifting for:  

• Recruitment and onboarding
• Learning and development
• Performance management
• Time and attendance
• Workforce and succession planning

An modern HR system also hands responsibility back to your employees and managers through self-service. That empowers your people and frees up your HR team to focus on the work that actually moves the organisation forward.

One more thing to check: make sure any shortlisted solutions can integrate with your existing Management Information System (MIS). These could be with platforms such as, Arbor, Bromcom or iSAMS, as well as any wider finance and business systems you rely on. 

At its heart, a payroll system pays your people. But payroll within education is rarely simple.

A system built for the education industry should handle multiple pension schemes. This includes the Teachers' and the Local Government Pension Schemes. It should produce clear payslips for people with more than one contract, process timesheets, manage term-time-only calculations, and integrate with your finance software.

When you choose a payroll solution, you have two main routes to consider:

• Run payroll in-house with the help of payroll software
• Outsource it to an experienced provider

Both have their merits. It comes down to what makes the most sense for your organisation. If you want to weigh up the options, our payroll solutions team can talk you through them. 

A single solution for HR and payroll gives you one version of the truth for your people data. No dual entry, no copying information from one system to another and far less room for human error.

That matters more than you might think. Payroll accuracy continues to be a significant challenge for organisations. Manual processes and disconnected systems can increase the risk of payroll errors, create additional administrative effort, and make it harder to maintain employee confidence in payroll operations. Bringing HR and payroll together in a single solution can help reduce duplication, improve data accuracy and streamline reporting.

Additionally, a unified system closes those gaps. It means better reporting, less admin and lower risk. As technology and automation advance, a single solution is fast becoming an important consideration for eeducational establishments looking to simplify processes and improve data accuracy.

Talk to your key people first. Bring in your HR, payroll, finance and IT teams together to map your current processes and pinpoint what eats up the most time. In doing so, you uncover the challenges a new system needs to solve.

Common culprits include:

• Paper-based processes, especially recruitment
• A lack of reporting and insight, particularly around absence
• Multiple disconnected systems with limited integration
• Statutory compliance, such as the Single Central Record
• Data security risks from legacy on-premise systems 

Spend some time getting to know the suppliers out there. After this, draw up a shortlist of five to ten suppliers and interrogate each one.  

Some questions to ask yourself:

• What can they offer?  
• Do they meet your needs?  
• Do they have a track record in education?  
• And what is their solution likely to cost across its whole life, not just year one?

We would also recommend speaking to colleagues in similar organisations who use suppliers.

Ask them:  

• How did they procure?  
• What worked well?  
• What would they do differently next time?

Industry events are another great way to meet suppliers face-to-face and hear how peers are approaching similar challenges. The Schools and Academies Show, Multi-Academy Trust Partnership Network (MATPN) events and UCISA conferences are all worth exploring when researching the market and speaking with potential suppliers. 

A demo is the single best way to judge what a supplier can really do. Ask each supplier to present scenario-based demonstrations built around your core objectives and processes that matter most to you.

Avoid the generic system overview. It rarely tells you what you need to know and  it does not respect your time. 

An HR and payroll solution is a significant investment, so your business case needs to be watertight. You will be competing with plenty of other departments for the same budget, so you need to show that this project delivers real benefit with meaningful time and cost savings.

The strongest business cases come armed with evidence. Use Return on Investment (ROI) calculators and case studies from organisations of a similar size to yours. Reflect on the benefits the project delivers across the whole organisation, not just one team.

One word of caution: the cheapest system rarely represents the best value. Balance price against:

• The supplier's track record
• Where they will host your data
• Their ability to scale as your organisation grows 

The Procurement Act 2023 came into effect  on 24 February 2025, replacing the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (PCR 2015). It reformed how the public sector buys goods and services.

It has three distinct aims:

1. Simpler procurement
2. More flexible competitions  
3. Greater transparency across the whole process

If you are a maintained school, academy, multi-academy trust (MAT) or college, here is what you need to know before you go to market.

You are a contracting authority

Schools, trusts, and colleges running above-threshold procurements count as contracting authorities and must comply with the Act.

The Schools Exemption is your friend

Schools, academies, MATs, and further education colleges are exempt from the rules covering below-threshold contracts. In practice, for anything below the relevant threshold, you can follow your own internal financial regulations and procurement policies. This means you do not need to publish those tenders on the Central Digital Platform.

Know your thresholds

Thresholds are unchanged under the Act and include VAT. As a guide, the goods and services threshold for most sub-central authorities sits at £214,904 at the time of writing. However, this is reviewed periodically, so always confirm the current figure.  

Crucially, you must count the whole-life value of the contract, including any optional extensions. A multi-year HR and payroll contract can cross the threshold once you add up its full term, so do the maths early.

MEAT becomes MAT

Under the old rules, you awarded contracts to the Most Economically Advantageous Tender (MEAT). Under the Act, you assess the Most Advantageous Tender (MAT). It is a small change of wording with a big effect.  You can now weight your criteria toward quality, social value and delivery, not just price.

Two main procedures

The Act streamlines the old routes into the Open Procedure and the new Competitive Flexible Procedure (CFP). The CFP lets you design a process that fits a complex requirement like an integrated HR and payroll rollout.

More transparency, more notices

The Act introduces a range of new notices published through a single Central Digital Platform, covering planning, tender, award and contract management.

The whole contract lifecycle counts

The Act now reaches beyond the award into contract management and expiry. For higher-value contracts, supplier performance must be assessed against published key performance indicators (KPIs). For suppliers who repeatedly falling short they can end up on a central debarment list. Always check that list before you progress a supplier.

Manage conflicts of interest

Sections 81 to 83 place a stronger focus on identifying and managing conflicts of interest. You will typically need a conflicts assessment for the contracting authority and individual declaration forms for everyone involved in the procurement.

Mind the policy statement

Contracting authorities must have regard to the National Procurement Policy Statement (NPPS). This sets out priorities such as value for money, economic growth and social value. It is worth reflecting these in your evaluation criteria.

Because the rules are still relatively new and many teams are finding their feet, we can help you check the current thresholds and your specific obligations against the official guidance before you begin.

A quick note: procurement is devolved. The detail above applies to England, with close alignment in Wales and Northern Ireland. Scotland has its own rules. This guide is for general information and is not legal advice. 

Be realistic with your timelines for both procuring and implementing a new system. Rush it, and you will not deliver the benefits you set out to achieve. Remember to factor in any notice periods with your current providers. In addition, the extra planning and notice-publication steps are now required by the Act.

By this stage you should be ready to write a clear, concise Request for Proposal (RFP).  

It should cover information about:  

• Your organisation
• The project objectives
• Timelines
• The rules of the process  
• A supplier questionnaire

You could use a sector-specific framework, and many established under PCR 2015 remain valid. Framework owners usually handle the relevant notices, though you should follow any call-off instructions they give you. Alternatively, to keep tighter control and governance, you may prefer to run the process in-house.

As a rough guide, many scoring methods put around 25% on price, with the rest split across functionality, ability to meet objectives, reputation and corporate stability. Under the Act's Most Advantageous Tender approach, make sure your criteria and weightings are published clearly and applied consistently. 

Once you have a preferred supplier, get the contract formally approved by your internal stakeholders. That may mean presenting your recommendation to governors and trustees, publishing the award and contract-management notices that the Act requires.

A good supplier will work in partnership with you to sign the contract in line with the timelines in your RFP.

Then, tell your people. Communicate the decision as early as you can, so everyone understands the changes coming to internal systems and processes, as well as all the benefits they will bring. This builds buy-in across the organisation, which is exactly what a smooth go-live and a strong return on investment depend on. 

If you would like more advice and guidance to support your procurement, our education consultants at MHR can help you.

As HR and payroll specialists, we're regularly implementing solutions across the education sector. We know Teachers' Pensions, term-time contracts and the realities of school finance. We will partner with you to deliver a better way of working.