Recruitment Services Framework

Not necessarily. The answer depends on which lot and model you choose. If you use the managed recruitment service (Lot 1), the master vendor model means a single framework supplier takes on responsibility for your recruitment, which typically involves consolidating existing agency relationships through a second-tier supply chain rather than simply removing them. Agencies you value may be onboarded as second-tier suppliers through the master vendor arrangement. Under the general recruitment lot (Lot 2), you can set up a preferred supplier list that includes framework suppliers alongside a formal, compliant structure. If any of your existing agencies are on the framework, you can formalise that relationship within the compliant procurement arrangement. If they are not, a mini-competition gives you a structured way to appoint suppliers that best meet your requirements. The talent bank technology (Lot 3) is an additional layer that sits alongside rather than replacing agency relationships. It is designed to capture workers you already know and use in a managed pool, reducing your dependence on agency fees for repeat hires. In all cases, Inprova will work with you at the call-off stage to understand your existing supplier relationships and design an approach that maintains continuity while bringing structure and compliance to your recruitment procurement.

Yes. This is one of the scenarios the framework was specifically designed to support. Many public sector organisations, particularly smaller councils, housing providers, and colleges, manage recruitment through HR or operational managers rather than a dedicated procurement function. Running a full procurement exercise for recruitment agencies from scratch requires time, expertise, and resource that those organisations often do not have. The framework removes that barrier. Because the procurement exercise has already been completed, you can access evaluated, compliant suppliers through a direct award without running your own tender process. Inprova provides template call-off documentation, and the team is available to support you through the process from initial requirement through to contract award. For organisations where the managed recruitment service model is appropriate, it also removes much of the ongoing administrative burden of managing multiple agency relationships, because a single supplier takes on that coordination role on your behalf. The talent bank technology can similarly reduce administrative load by giving hiring managers direct access to a compliant pool of pre-qualified workers without needing to go through an agency every time a short-term vacancy arises. Getting in touch with Inprova early, before you have a pressing vacancy to fill, means the right arrangement is in place before the operational pressure starts.

IR35 off-payroll working rules and agency worker regulations, the Agency Workers Regulations 2010 in Great Britain, or the Agency Workers Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2011, create real compliance obligations for public sector organisations using temporary and interim workers, and the consequences of getting it wrong, including back-dated tax liability and employment tribunal claims, are significant. This framework does not remove those obligations, but it provides a procurement foundation that makes meeting them more manageable. All suppliers on the framework have been evaluated against compliance criteria as part of the tender process. At the call-off stage, Inprova can help you build specific IR35 and agency worker compliance requirements into your contract terms, so that your obligations are clearly allocated between you and the supplier. The managed recruitment service model, where a single master vendor takes on responsibility for the supply chain, also provides clearer lines of accountability for compliance than a fragmented multi-agency arrangement where each relationship is governed differently. For organisations that have historically relied on informal agency relationships without formal contracts, the framework provides the contractual structure that compliance requires. If you have specific concerns about how IR35 applies to particular roles or engagement models in your organisation, Inprova recommends taking specialist employment legal advice, and can help you identify the right questions to raise with framework suppliers at the call-off stage.

The three lots reflect three fundamentally different approaches to managing recruitment. Lot 1, the managed recruitment service, is a fully outsourced model where a single master vendor supplier manages all your recruitment needs, supplementing their own candidate pool with second-tier agencies where needed. You deal with one supplier, one contract, and one reporting relationship. This model suits organisations with complex, high-volume, or multi-discipline hiring needs who want to consolidate agency spend and reduce internal administration. Lot 2, general recruitment services, gives you access to individual specialist suppliers either as a single appointed agency or as a structured preferred supplier list across multiple providers. This model suits organisations that want to maintain more direct control over specific agency relationships, use niche specialists for particular disciplines or regions, or build a PSL that reflects their workforce profile. Lot 3, the talent bank technology, is not a recruitment agency at all. It is a software platform that lets you build and manage your own pool of pre-qualified workers, with hiring managers able to book known workers directly without going through an agency. This model suits organisations with frequent short-term staffing needs in predictable role types, where reducing agency margin on repeat hires is a financial priority. The three models are not mutually exclusive. Many organisations use a combination, for example a managed service for high-volume roles alongside a talent bank for short-term cover in specific services. Inprova can help you assess which combination fits your workforce strategy and recruitment volumes.

Lack of visibility over agency spend is one of the most common problems in public sector recruitment, and it is almost always a symptom of fragmented procurement rather than a finance system failure. When recruitment spend is spread across multiple agencies with different rate cards, different margin structures, and different invoice formats, aggregating it into a meaningful picture requires manual effort that most teams do not have capacity for. This framework, combined with Inprova’s Quantum platform, addresses that directly. Quantum provides a single data environment where recruitment spend across all framework suppliers can be tracked and reported in one place, giving procurement and finance teams visibility of total agency expenditure, cost by role type or department, supplier performance, and comparison of agency margin and fill rates. For organisations that have never had this level of visibility, the data often reveals spending patterns that were invisible before: agencies being used outside the framework arrangement, rate card inconsistencies, or role types where direct hire or the talent bank would deliver the same outcome at significantly lower cost. Getting to this position does require that your recruitment spend is going through the framework arrangement rather than around it, which is why managing compliance with the PSL or managed service contract matters as much as setting it up in the first place. Inprova’s contract management support helps you maintain that discipline over the life of the arrangement.

Agency spend in the public sector is often higher than it needs to be, not because agencies are overcharging individually, but because the overall arrangement lacks the structure to drive value. Fragmented spend across multiple agencies means no single supplier has the volume incentive to offer competitive pricing. Repeat hires of the same workers through an agency attract a margin every time, even when the organisation already has a relationship with that person. And without visibility of total spend, it is impossible to benchmark one supplier’s rates and fill rates against another. This framework addresses each of those problems. The managed service model consolidates spend with a single master vendor, which gives that supplier a volume incentive to perform and gives you a single commercial negotiation for rate card review. The talent bank technology reduces agency margin on repeat hires by allowing hiring managers to rebook known workers directly through the platform rather than through an agency. The general recruitment lot supports PSL construction that creates competition between suppliers for your business. Inprova’s procurement consultancy team can also work with you to analyse your current agency spend data, identify the highest-value opportunities for cost reduction, and help you build those requirements into your call-off specification. The goal is not to remove agencies from your supply chain entirely, but to ensure the spend going through them is delivering value that can be evidenced and compared.

Benchmarking agency rates in the public sector is genuinely difficult because pay rates, margins, and role definitions vary significantly across disciplines, regions, and seniority levels, and most agencies are understandably reluctant to share their rate cards with competitors. This framework gives you several mechanisms for rate benchmarking. At the point of call-off, a mini-competition between Lot 2 suppliers for your specific role types or a particular geographic area will produce competitive responses that give you a market comparison for the rates being offered. Under the managed service model, the master vendor’s rate card is agreed at call-off, and Inprova’s team can support you in reviewing whether the rates reflect current market conditions for the roles and regions you are hiring in. Over the life of the contract, Quantum provides the spend data needed to compare actual pay rates and margin levels across role types and suppliers, and to identify where rates have drifted from the agreed position. Inprova’s category expertise in recruitment is also a practical resource: the team works with public sector organisations across multiple sectors and has visibility of the rate benchmarks that inform what good looks like in specific disciplines and regions. If you have specific concerns about whether your current agency rates are competitive, talking to Inprova before renewing or extending any arrangements is the right starting point.

A talent bank is a technology platform that allows your organisation to build and manage its own pool of pre-qualified workers, accessible directly by hiring managers without going through an external agency. Where a recruitment agency sources candidates on your behalf and charges a margin for doing so, a talent bank platform holds workers who have already been through your compliance process and are available to be booked directly. The practical difference is most significant for short-term and repeat-hire scenarios. If you regularly use the same bank of support workers for cover in social care, teaching assistant roles, or facilities management, every time you rebook one of those workers through an agency you pay an agency margin for a placement the agency effectively did not make. The talent bank removes that margin by letting the hiring manager book the worker directly through the platform. The platform manages the full lifecycle: finding and onboarding workers into the pool, verifying compliance and right-to-work documentation, managing timesheets, processing payroll, and providing management information on usage and spend. Platforms on this framework operate as SaaS solutions, available 24/7, and are ISO 27001 certified. They can be used alongside rather than instead of agency recruitment. For roles where you are filling new positions with candidates you do not know, agency recruitment remains appropriate. The talent bank is most powerful for the significant proportion of short-term hiring where you are repeatedly re-engaging workers you have already verified and worked with before.

These are exactly the role types the talent bank technology was designed for. Social care and education support are both high-volume, high-frequency staffing categories where repeat-hire of the same workers is common, compliance documentation needs to be carefully managed, and the operational pressure to fill shifts quickly is intense. For a local authority with a home care service or supported living provision, the talent bank lets care coordinators or team managers search the pool for available, verified workers and book them directly, without placing a call to an agency and waiting for a response. For a school or multi-academy trust filling teaching assistant or support staff hours, the hiring manager can see who in the talent pool has the right experience, is available, and has been used successfully before, and make a booking in minutes. The compliance management capability within the platform is particularly valuable in these settings: right-to-work documentation, DBS checks, and training records are held against each worker’s profile, so hiring managers know before they book whether the worker meets the requirements for that specific setting. For organisations that are currently paying agency margins every time they rebook a familiar face, the cost reduction potential from shifting that volume to a talent bank is often substantial. Inprova can help you assess the volume and value of your repeat-hire activity to give you a realistic picture of the financial case before committing to the platform.

It can be, and for most organisations it is a significant improvement on informal arrangements. Many public sector organisations have built informal registers of bank workers, often managed through spreadsheets, email chains, or basic rota systems. These arrangements work up to a point, but they create compliance risk because there is no systematic way to verify that workers’ documentation is current, no audit trail for hiring decisions, and no management information on how the pool is being used or at what cost. The talent bank platforms on this framework formalise those arrangements within a compliant, auditable system. Workers are onboarded with verified documentation held centrally. Hiring managers book through the platform rather than by text or phone call, creating a record of every booking and the terms on which it was made. Timesheet management and payroll processing happen within the system, reducing the administrative burden on managers and finance teams. Management information gives procurement and HR leadership visibility of pool utilisation, cost per shift, and gaps between pool capacity and demand. The migration from an informal arrangement to a talent bank platform requires some upfront work to onboard your existing bank workers and establish the compliance process. Inprova and the framework suppliers can support that mobilisation. For organisations where informal bank arrangements have grown organically and are now difficult to govern, the talent bank provides a structured way to retain what is working while removing the compliance and administrative risks that have accumulated alongside it.

Local authorities with large social care operations are among the most frequent users of managed recruitment services in the public sector, and for good reason. Social care staffing is high-volume, covers a wide range of disciplines from frontline support workers through to qualified social workers and team managers, and is rarely fully met from permanent employed staff alone. The managed recruitment service (Lot 1) is typically the right starting point for councils with complex social care hiring needs across children’s services, adults’ services, and community care. A master vendor supplier manages the full supply chain, supplementing their own candidate pool with specialist agencies where needed, and provides a single reporting line for spend, fill rates, and performance. This replaces the typical situation where a council is managing relationships with 15 or 20 agencies independently, each with different rate cards, different account managers, and different invoice formats. The talent bank technology (Lot 3) works well alongside a managed service for the specific subset of social care roles where repeat-hire of familiar workers is common, for example regular bank support workers in residential settings. Reducing agency margin on those repeat placements can generate meaningful savings even in the first year. Inprova can help you map your current social care staffing spend against the available models and build a business case for the approach that delivers the best combination of cost reduction, compliance improvement, and operational reliability.

Demonstrating value for money on agency spend is genuinely difficult when that spend is fragmented, when rate cards are not systematically reviewed, and when fill rates and time-to-hire data are not captured consistently. This framework provides the structure to make that evidence available. At the procurement level, using a compliantly tendered framework with a quality-led evaluation gives you a documented basis for the suppliers you have appointed and the rates they are offering. At the operational level, Inprova’s Quantum platform gives you the spend data to compare actual cost per hire and agency margin across suppliers and role types, identify where off-contract hiring is occurring, and benchmark current rates against what the framework can deliver. For councils facing scrutiny from internal audit, external audit, or overview and scrutiny committees on recruitment and agency spend, the audit trail that a framework arrangement provides, including supplier evaluation records, call-off documentation, and performance monitoring, gives procurement and HR leadership the evidence base to defend their decisions with confidence. If you are currently unable to answer the question of what your total agency spend is, where it is going, and whether it is delivering value, the first step is getting in touch with Inprova to understand what your spend data shows before designing the right procurement approach.

Yes. The framework covers all disciplines across both clinical and non-clinical roles, and the suppliers on each lot have experience working across the full range of NHS workforce requirements. For clinical roles, the general recruitment lot (Lot 2) gives you access to specialist suppliers with experience in nursing, allied health professionals, medical staffing, and other clinical disciplines. For non-clinical roles including estates and facilities, finance, HR, administrative, and management functions, the managed recruitment service or general recruitment lot both provide appropriate coverage. NHS trusts with high volumes of agency staffing across multiple disciplines often find the managed service model delivers the greatest benefit in terms of spend consolidation and performance visibility. A master vendor that understands NHS pay frameworks, bank and agency rate limits, and the workforce pressures specific to the health sector provides better operational service than a generalist agency managing health roles alongside commercial clients. For NHS trusts and health boards operating under agency spend controls, whether that’s NHS England’s guidance in England or the equivalent controls in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, using a compliantly tendered framework is an important part of demonstrating that agency usage is being managed appropriately. Contact Inprova to discuss how the framework can be structured around your trust’s specific workforce profile and the reporting requirements of your finance and workforce teams.

Yes, and the talent bank technology (Lot 3) is specifically well suited to this objective. Supply teacher and teaching assistant agency spend is a significant and often poorly controlled cost for many MATs. The same teachers are frequently rebooked through agencies time after time, with the agency charging a margin on every placement even for workers the school has used dozens of times before. The talent bank puts those workers into a pool that the trust manages directly. Schools within the trust can access verified, available teachers and support staff and book them without going through an agency, eliminating the margin on repeat placements and giving the trust central visibility of how its bank workforce is being used across all schools. The platform manages compliance for each worker, including right-to-work checks, DBS documentation, and any role-specific requirements, so schools have the assurance that bookings are compliant without duplicating checks manually. For new teacher recruitment, where the trust genuinely needs an agency to source candidates it does not already have a relationship with, the general recruitment lot provides access to education-specialist suppliers. The combination of Lot 2 for new hire and Lot 3 for repeat-hire is a common approach among education providers looking to manage total teacher staffing cost more effectively. Inprova can help you analyse your current supply teacher spend to quantify the saving available from shifting repeat-hire volume to a talent bank.

Yes. Further education colleges have workforce profiles that span curriculum delivery, student support services, administration, estates and facilities, and management, often with a significant proportion of sessional and part-time contracts that create ongoing short-term staffing flexibility needs. The general recruitment lot (Lot 2) gives colleges access to suppliers with experience in FE sector hiring, including the curriculum disciplines, professional services functions, and support roles that make up a typical college workforce. The talent bank technology is relevant for colleges that regularly use sessional lecturers, learning support assistants, or cover staff, where managing a pre-qualified pool of known workers reduces both the cost and the time needed to fill short-term gaps. For colleges that are part of a group structure or that share services with other FE providers, the framework can be structured to serve the group collectively rather than each institution independently, which provides better volume leverage in commercial negotiations. Inprova’s team can advise on how to structure a call-off that reflects the specific workforce characteristics of your college, including the sessional and term-time patterns that make FE recruitment different from other education contexts.

Yes. Police forces and police and crime commissioners are eligible to use this framework as public bodies. In England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, this eligibility sits under the Procurement Act 2023; Police Scotland and the Scottish Police Authority are eligible under the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 and Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015. The framework covers staffing needs across both police officer equivalent roles, where agencies can support the identification of candidates for civilian investigative and specialist functions, and the full range of police staff roles including finance, HR, digital and technology, communications, estates, and administrative functions. For forces with significant volumes of interim or contract staffing in support functions, the managed recruitment service or a structured PSL through the general recruitment lot provides a compliant, commercially controlled arrangement. The general recruitment lot also gives access to suppliers with experience in vetting-compliant recruitment processes, which is relevant for forces where background checking requirements extend beyond standard employment reference checks. For roles where operational continuity is critical and gaps cannot be tolerated, the talent bank technology provides a mechanism for building and managing a pool of pre-qualified, already-vetted workers for specific functions, reducing time-to-fill for short-term cover requirements. Contact Inprova to discuss how the framework can be structured around your force’s specific workforce profile and security requirements.

The framework was procured by Procurement for Housing (PfH) as a contracting authority under the Public Contracts Regulations 2015, which was the applicable legislation at the time of procurement. The framework was advertised on the Find a Tender Service as an open procedure, ensuring full market transparency. Public bodies access the framework under the call-off provisions that allow eligible contracting authorities to use a framework established by another contracting authority, provided that framework was procured in compliance with the applicable regulations. In England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, the Procurement Act 2023, which came into force in February 2025, introduced new transparency and reporting requirements for public contracts, including the publication of contract award notices and performance reporting for contracts above specified thresholds. Scotland operates under its own separate procurement legislation, and Scottish contracting authorities should check how their own regulations apply to call-offs from this framework. Inprova can advise on how your call-off arrangements and ongoing contract management should reflect the requirements relevant to your nation. For organisations where funding conditions impose specific procurement transparency requirements, the framework’s open procedure basis and documented evaluation provide the evidence needed to demonstrate compliance. If you have specific questions about how the framework’s legal basis applies to your organisation’s governance structure or funding conditions, Inprova recommends taking your own legal advice and can provide the framework documentation needed to support that review.

Off-contract hiring, managers going directly to agencies they have used before rather than through the framework arrangement, is the single biggest risk to a recruitment framework delivering the outcomes it was designed to achieve. It happens for predictable reasons: managers have existing relationships they trust, the agency responds quickly when they call, and going through the framework feels like an additional step when there is a vacancy to fill urgently. Addressing it requires a combination of process, communication, and monitoring. Process: ensuring the framework call-off arrangement is set up to be as easy to use as the informal alternative, with clear guidance for managers on how to raise a vacancy through the framework. Communication: making sure hiring managers understand why the framework exists and what the compliance and cost risks of bypassing it are. Monitoring: using Quantum’s spend data to identify agency invoices that are coming from suppliers outside the framework arrangement, which signals off-contract activity, and addressing it quickly. The managed service model reduces off-contract risk because it establishes a clear, single point of contact for all recruitment needs. The talent bank technology addresses the most common driver of off-contract hiring in high-frequency settings by making the compliant route faster and easier than calling an agency. Inprova can help you design the governance and monitoring arrangements that make compliance with the framework the path of least resistance for managers, not an additional burden.

Yes, subject to your own organisation’s procurement governance requirements. Public sector organisations can use multiple frameworks for different categories of recruitment, provided each call-off is made through a compliantly tendered framework and the procurement route is documented. Many organisations use different frameworks for different disciplines, for example a health-specific framework for clinical roles and a broader public sector framework for support functions. The Inprova Recruitment Services Framework covers a wide range of disciplines and is designed to be a comprehensive route for public sector organisations without requiring them to use multiple frameworks for different role types. However, where your organisation already has effective arrangements in place for specific disciplines through another compliant framework, it is not necessary to move all recruitment spend to this framework. The important principle is that all agency spend is going through a compliantly tendered route, not that all spend goes through any single framework. If you are using the Crown Commercial Service’s workforce frameworks alongside this framework, contact Inprova to discuss how to ensure both arrangements are working effectively and that spend visibility is maintained across all routes.

Inprova’s support does not stop at contract award. The team provides ongoing contract management, working alongside you to monitor supplier performance, address issues as they arise, and make sure the arrangement continues to deliver against its objectives over the full contract term. For recruitment frameworks, performance monitoring typically covers fill rates by role type and region, time-to-hire against agreed targets, candidate quality and attrition at the end of probation, compliance with rate card and margin terms, and adherence to IR35 and agency worker regulations. Inprova acts as an informed intermediary between your organisation and the supplier, with the category knowledge to identify when performance is drifting and the procurement authority to hold suppliers to account before problems escalate. For organisations monitoring recruitment performance through Quantum, spend data, supplier performance indicators, and contract terms sit in one platform, making it straightforward to produce the reporting that HR directors, finance teams, and senior leadership need. Quarterly or annual contract reviews give you a structured opportunity to reassess whether the current model and the current suppliers are still the right fit, and Inprova’s team supports those reviews as part of the ongoing relationship.