Navigating staffing shortages alongside fixed, limited budgets is a constant challenge for school leaders. You want to ensure you have the best educators in your classrooms, but the procurement process to get them there often feels overwhelming and unnecessarily complex.
If you are using the Government Commercial Agency (GCA) RM6376 framework for the first time, you are taking a fantastic step towards compliant, reliable recruitment. You have access to a structured system that guarantees adherence to standards. However, one of the first decisions you will face is selecting the appropriate route to award your staffing contract.
The terminology might sound a bit daunting, but the underlying concepts are highly accessible. You simply need to choose between selecting a supplier directly, known as award without competition or running a mini-tender between several agencies, called award with competition. This guide explains what each route entails, helping you make an informed choice to reduce recruitment costs and drive operational efficiency at your school.
Understanding your options is the first step toward a seamless recruitment experience. Both routes are fully compliant, but they serve different needs and scales of operation.
Under this route, you select a supplier straight from the GCA agency selection tool, sign a short order form, and your task is complete. The supplier’s published fee applies, alongside the framework’s standard terms. There is no mini-tender, no competitive process, and no additional documentation required beyond the order form itself.
This is the recommended route for Lot 1 (direct appointment of teachers and support staff).
This route requires you to invite several suppliers from the relevant lot to compete for your contract. They submit responses against specific criteria you have published. You then select the winning supplier/s and sign an order form with them, while the other suppliers receive notification that they have been unsuccessful.
This is the recommended route for Lot 2 (managed service) and can also be utilised for Lot 1 when dealing with larger or more complex school procurements.
This is the right route in the vast majority of cases for most individual schools. You should use it when:
In practice, this covers most supply staff bookings made by school business managers and headteachers. Whether you are filling next Tuesday’s cover, urgently sourcing a maternity replacement, or topping up teaching assistant capacity for a single term, these are all textbook scenarios for the award without competition route.
This route makes more sense when your procurement needs are larger, more strategic, or when your school or trust has the leverage to negotiate. You should use it when:
This route is most frequently used by larger multi-academy trusts setting up a trust-wide supply arrangement, local authority schools running a borough-wide procurement, or schools with highly specialist requirements that demand tailored terms.
Choosing between these two routes involves balancing your immediate needs with your long-term goals. Here is how the trade-offs look in practice.
Award without competition is incredibly fast. You can have a trusted supplier engaged within hours, ensuring your students experience minimal disruption. Award with competition takes weeks or even months, depending on the complexity of your requirements. In exchange for that invested time, you may secure better commercial terms, provided your volume is sufficient to motivate suppliers to bid below their published fees. For a one-off booking, the time investment in a competitive process rarely pays back. For a 30-school trust running a large annual supply spend, it has the potential to be highly beneficial.
Award without competition uses the framework’s standard terms exactly as written. Award with competition lets you specify modifications, such as particular performance requirements, specific service levels, or custom reporting arrangements. The first option offers total simplicity, while the second provides extensive control. Most schools find the standard terms perfectly cover their needs, but larger organisations sometimes require that extra flexibility to ensure compliance across multiple sites.
Award without competition allows you to work with as many suppliers as you like. You simply sign a separate short order form with each one. Award with competition typically results in one chosen supplier for the contract in question. If you value the flexibility of using different suppliers for different needs, perhaps one for primary cover and another for special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), the award without competition route preserves that freedom. The award with competition route consolidates your operations.
If you are unsure which route fits your situation, work through these simple questions in order:
For most individual schools, the answers point clearly to the simplest route: award without competition. For larger trusts and complex procurements, the answers point to award with competition. The framework is expertly designed to handle both cleanly and securely.
It is highly reassuring to know that these routes are not mutually exclusive across your organisation. A multi-academy trust could run a competitive process to award a Lot 2 managed service contract for the bulk of its supply staffing. Simultaneously, individual schools within that trust could award without competition under Lot 1 for highly specialist needs that fall outside the main managed service. The framework fully supports this layered, sustainable approach to staffing.
Most schools we speak to initially assume they must run a complex competitive process, only to realise they actually do not. The award without competition route is straightforward, incredibly fast, and entirely compliant with the framework. It remains the recommended route in the GCA buyer guide for very good reasons.
Where competitive processes truly pay back is in scale and strategic procurement. Trusts operating at that scale typically have procurement leads who already know exactly which route they are using before they even begin.
You can also book a quick 15-minute call with us, if you would like a second opinion on your specific situation, we are always happy to help. We will provide you with a clear, honest view of whether a competitive process is worth your valuable time, empowering you to make the right decision for your students and your budget.
Engage Education has been named as a supplier on Government Commercial Agency’s (GCA) RM6376 Supply Teachers and Education Recruitment framework, Lot 1: Teachers and Education Recruitment. Engage Partners has been awarded Lot 2, so we are well placed to advise on the best approach for your school or trust. The framework runs from the 30th of April 2026 to the 29th of April 2029.
Government Commercial Agency (GCA) is the UK’s central commercial and procurement organisation, connecting public and private sectors to achieve the best outcomes for the UK and its citizens. GCA uses its commercial expertise to create a simpler procurement experience that redirects valuable resources into essential public services, creating value for the nation. GCA replaced Crown Commercial Service (CCS) on the 1st of April 2026.
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