There's a particular flavour of worry that shows up the moment the word "centralisation" enters a conversation. It usually sounds something like this:
"We've spent three years building a relationship with an agency who actually understands our SEN provision and what works best for us, and now someone in a central office is going to swap them for whoever's cheapest."
We hear it a lot. And honestly, we get it! A good supply relationship takes years to build and about five minutes to lose.
So let's look at what the framework actually does, and where your academy still gets a say.
Does the GCA framework force trusts to centralise supply staffing?
No. The framework offers routes, not orders.
Lot 1 lets academies appoint approved suppliers directly, one booking at a time. It's the route most day-to-day supply runs on.
Lot 2 is the consolidated option, where a single supplier manages staffing across the trust. It tends to suit larger MATs after one tidy arrangement.
Choosing Lot 2 is a trust decision, not a framework requirement. The framework was built to protect budgets without stripping out school-level choice.
Can individual academies still choose their own supply agency?
Technically, yes, though this one is genuinely trust-dependent.
The deciding factor isn't the framework. It's your trust's scheme of delegation. If budget and hiring decisions already sit with your head or School Business Manager, they generally still will. If they sat centrally before, they'll sit centrally now.
What has changed is that procurement compliance is assessed at trust level, with spend aggregated across all academies rather than academy by academy. That's what starts the centralisation conversations, but aggregating spend isn't the same as removing choice.
Where your voice counts
None of this needs to be academies versus the central team – the best outcomes we see come from both comparing honest notes.
Because two academies in the same trust can run supply completely differently. A secondary covering single days at short notice has very little in common with a primary booking a term-long SEN placement. That variation really matters when central teams are weighing up lots and shortlisting agencies, and academies are the ones who know it.
It works both ways, too. An agency already doing a brilliant job in one academy might turn out to be a strong fit trust-wide. Worth flagging, and worth looking into properly.
So, if your trust is reviewing its arrangements, that's the moment. Name the agencies that know your setting, flag your specialist and SEN requirements early, and ask whether school-level supplier choice can sit inside a trust-wide agreement.
Still weighing up your options?
Lot 1 or Lot 2 isn't really a paperwork decision – it's a question about how your schools actually work day to day.
Get your central team and a couple of your heads into the same conversation, and we'll talk through what each route means in practice, including where school-level choice can sit within a trust-wide agreement.
Read our blog about what to be aware of when looking into Lot 2, or have an open conversation with us to discover which would work best for you.