A route to the GCA framework — without losing what makes your agency yours.
You built the relationship. You found the candidate. You won the client. Keep doing what you do best — we’ll provide the compliant infrastructure behind the assignment.
Your agency stays front and centre.
Good agencies shouldn’t be left out in the cold.
Small and independent recruitment agencies are the backbone of education supply across the country.
Many have been founded by former teachers, school leaders, SEN professionals or people with deep personal links to education. For them, the job is about far more than profit — it is about schools, communities and finding the right people to support children and young people.
But as education recruitment becomes increasingly procurement and framework-led, access to the market is becoming more complicated.
Not every excellent education recruitment agency was able to secure a place on the GCA framework. That shouldn't mean they are left behind, or that they have to walk away from relationships they have spent years building.
There are other compliant routes. They aren't always simple.
The supply teacher mandate allows schools to use compliant procurement routes outside of the GCA, including other approved frameworks.
For some agencies those routes work perfectly well. For others, gaining access can be equally difficult, while some commercial frameworks can carry charges that make already-tight education recruitment margins harder to sustain.
The GCA provides another route. It is the Government's own education recruitment framework and an increasingly important procurement route for schools.
Importantly, the framework allows subcontracting through an approved Lot 1 supplier, subject to the framework rules.
Your agency. Your client. Your candidate.
Our role is not to replace your agency.
You remain the recruiter and relationship owner. Principal simply provides the compliant operational infrastructure required to run the assignment.
You recruit.
- Find the school or education client
- Build and manage the client relationship
- Source the candidate
- Manage the candidate relationship
- Agree the assignment
- Agree commercial terms within the framework rules
- Maintain the day-to-day relationship
We run the assignment.
- Candidate compliance and safeguarding
- Principal Academy and mandatory candidate training
- Framework administration
- Contracts and documentation
- Insurance
- Payroll and worker administration
- Timesheets and processing
- Client invoicing
- Candidate payments
- Cash-flow funding
- Credit control
- Debt collection and debt risk
- Framework reporting
Collapse your compliance overhead.
Reduce your cash-flow exposure.
Transfer the debt risk.
You focus your time and money on the part of your business that creates value — recruiting great people and building great relationships with schools.
Principal Academy and mandatory training.
Your candidates will also receive access to the Principal Academy, our online training and professional development platform.
Where mandatory training is required for an assignment, candidates will be offered access to the relevant training through Principal as part of the onboarding and compliance process.
Principal Academy
Access to online education-focused training and professional development.
Mandatory Training
Relevant mandatory training offered as part of the candidate compliance journey.
One Joined-up Process
Compliance, safeguarding and training managed through the same infrastructure.
One simple daily margin.
No confusing percentage structures or layers of charges.
Principal retains an agreed fixed daily margin for the infrastructure, compliance, funding and risk involved in running the assignment.
In many cases, this may be less than the cost of some alternative commercial framework routes — while also removing substantial back-office administration and financial exposure.
You know the commercial arrangement before the placement begins. No surprises.
Built by an education recruitment agency, for education recruitment agencies.
We understand why agencies are protective of their client and candidate relationships because we are an independent education recruitment agency too.
We understand the value of a school relationship that may have taken years to build and why introducing a client or candidate into someone else's infrastructure requires trust.
Principal provides the infrastructure that allows those relationships to continue operating in an increasingly framework-led education recruitment market.
Keep your clients.
Keep your candidates.
Keep recruiting.
If procurement is becoming a barrier to one of your school relationships, talk to us.
We can explain how the subcontracting model works, what Principal takes responsibility for, what remains with your agency, the commercial structure and whether the route is suitable for your assignments.
Talk to us about becoming an Agency Partner