1 in 4 Employees will LIE About Illness THIS FRIDAY To Avoid Work

27% of employees plan to lie about illnesses to get the day off work this Friday, a survey reveals.
“Sorry, won’t make it in today – must be something I ate” – a common excuse phoned in to workplaces across the UK, typically as the summer weather delivers scorching temperatures. However some of the workforce seems to have an ulterior motive to have a sun day at their employer’s expense.
Office provider Desk.co.uk asked 2,088 employees over the Bank Holiday weekend if they would consider telling a few “white lies” to avoid a day at work this week. 27% of those questioned said they would tell a lie to try and get an extra day off work this week – with Friday 1st June being the most likely day.
Jane Smith from Desk.co.uk explains, “When it’s hot, kids are off and it’s a short week people are more likely to lie to avoid a day in the hot office. Some people will attempt to work from home, but some simply won’t turn in at all and make up a lie.”
Employers are getting hot under the collar when it comes to how to deal with fake sick days. Their responsibility to keep staff and customers alike safe and healthy it seems, is open to abuse.
“The challenge is for employers to decide what is right and wrong – yes, they want their staff in work, but they don’t want an office full of sick people”, Jane Smith from Desk.co.uk comments. “In the new world of working from home, many are seeing this as the best option – but we all know what it’s like trying to work from home – especially when it’s hot”.
Most likely fake sick days this week according to the survey:
• Friday 1st June – 27%
• Tuesday 29th May – 11%
• Wednesday 30th May – 9%
• Thursday 31st May – 8%
Robert from Birmingham commented, “It’ll be raining all summer won’t it, so I want to make the most of it. It’s so hot in work, so yes I have told a porky in the past and had the day off”.
It’s not just those who fancy a lie in who are using excuses not to go into work. Those with children face the common problem of finding childcare during these short school holidays.
Jo from Leeds commented: “I always find it hard to organise the kids, if I get stuck what I can do apart from use up my sick days – as long as I don’t go over, it’ll be fine”.
The weather is forecast to pick up towards Thursday with highs of 23 degrees and then cool off slightly on Friday with highs of 21 degrees.
Desk.co.uk advises all employers to double check sick day excuses this week, especially Friday.

iSAMS Launches Integrated MIS and Accounting Solution for Schools

Northampton, United Kingdom: iSAMS, the leading MIS supplier to Independent Schools in the UK, announced today the launch of the company’s new Finance Solution – iFinance. The iFinance solution brings together the academic, pastoral, administrative and fee billing elements complete with an accounting system to help schools eliminate unnecessary duplication of work and reduce costly mistakes.

On the company’s launch of the iFinance solution, iSAMS Director, Jamie Reid said, “We have spoken at length with bursars and senior management about the frustrations of disparate systems, particularly finance systems not linked with the school’s chosen MIS. Following this feedback, we have worked with a partner to develop a new integrated finance solution, iFinance”.

The iFinance solution was developed to assist in synchronising different sets of data to provide schools with a solution that combines two of many difficult elements in a bursars’ daily work tasks – complicated fee billing and accounts and balances.

The iFinance fee billing feature allows account departments to generate bills and add charges in several different ways for specific applications, current students and alumni. The feature enables the bursary to amend invoices and synchronise this data with a sales and nominal ledger. The flexible deferred income functionality removes the need for monthly journals to be calculated and posted. Featuring a comprehensive suite of interactive reports for pre and post invoice, historic invoices and ad-hoc reports.

The iFinance accounting, consolidation and business intelligence features offer the bursary the capability to generate predefined and custom reports profiled by user. The fully-interactive reporting allows the user to drill down to transaction level and produce customised analysis, which can then be exported to Word, PDF or Excel. The Bank Reconciliation feature allows the user to allocate funds received against outstanding balances, with the balances being fed back to the Fee Billing feature. The approval workflow process enables schools to adopt a paperless purchase order and invoice environment.

The launch of the iFinance solution from iSAMS means schools can benefit from an all-in-one integrated MIS and accounting solution. It offers comprehensive fee billing and powerful accounting functionality which is presented to schools as a secure cloud-hosted solution. It will assist the school bursary to enhance data workflows, gain access to key information for analysis and generate sophisticated reporting for senior management.

About iSAMS
iSAMS is the first management information system for schools that’s entirely browser-based. iSAMS was designed for teachers, by teachers, and specifically developed with educational needs in mind. It allows staff members to access any information through a clear, intuitive interface. Because it’s browser-based, staff can access the same information from home, or anywhere else in the world, as they can in school.

iSAMS is used by over 750 schools with over half a million active users on the platform and currently the leading MIS supplier to UK Independent Schools.

For more information visit www.isams.com and https://www.isams.com/products/administration/ifinance/

High profile Ofsted case demonstrates importance of proper staff vetting



By Francesca Snape – Regulatory Law Specialist at Stephensons

Nurseries and early years childcare providers must ensure they have robust policies and procedures in place with regard to the vetting of potential staff and recruitment practices, or they may face enforcement action by Ofsted.
A recent case, which has been widely publicised, demonstrates the importance of early years providers ensuring their policies and procedures for vetting, staff recruitment and safeguarding are in line with statutory requirements as well as the guidance set out by Ofsted. A nursery owner was issued with a Notice of Intention to cancel her registration by Ofsted in April 2018 as a result of a safeguarding investigation, which uncovered that she had employed her partner who had a criminal record for a number of offences and a caution for wilful neglect. It is reported that the nursery owner initially informed Ofsted that she was not aware of her partners caution for wilful neglect from 2005, however, when she provided a copy of her partners DBS certificate to Ofsted, it was noted that this did disclose the caution.
Requirements
One of the areas Ofsted considers when carrying out inspections is the safeguarding procedures in place – and this includes recruitment processes. Ofsted expects early years settings to be able to demonstrate that they meet all regulations and duties for the purposes of safeguarding judgements in the inspection handbook. At an inspection, inspectors are expected to check that the provider is able to produce evidence of suitability of relevant staff and adults that work at and attend the setting.
Section 3 of the Early Years Foundation Stage framework (“the Framework”) outlines the standards that all early years providers must meet to ensure that children are kept safe and specific guidance is provided on suitable people, staff qualifications, training, support and skills. Specifically, providers, other than childminders, must obtain an enhanced criminal records check in respect of every person aged 16 and over, including for unsupervised volunteers and supervised volunteers, who provide personal care, and who:
– Works directly with children;
– Lives on the premises on which the childcare is provided and/or;
– Works on the premises on which childcare is provided (unless they do not work on the part of the premises where the childcare takes place, or do not work there at times when children are present).
‘Personal care’ includes helping a child, for reasons of age, illness or disability, with eating or drinking, or in connection with toileting, washing, bathing and dressing.
In addition to the above requirements, registered providers must also carry out an additional criminal record check (or checks if more than one country) for anyone who has lived or worked abroad.
Registered providers are responsible for ensuring that they carry out assessments of staff suitability and this will also be considered during inspections. Ofsted are responsible for considering the suitability of a provider or registered manager but they will not assess the suitability of other members of staff. As such, to determine whether a provider is carrying out sufficient checks in this regard, inspectors will consider whether there is evidence of the following, although this is not an exhaustive list:
– An enhanced DBS check;
– References;
– Full employment history;
– Qualifications;
– Interviews;
– Medical suitability;
– Any other checks undertaken.
Providers must not allow people to have unsupervised contact with children being cared for until such a time that these checks have been undertaken. It is vitally important that Providers keep a record in staff files of all checks undertaken so that this can be evidenced during inspections.
Under the Framework, Ofsted specifically state that providers must tell staff that they are expected to disclose any convictions, cautions, court orders, reprimands and warnings that may affect their suitability to work with children and this is regardless of whether it was received before or during their employment at the setting.
Conclusion
It is often the case where Ofsted identify a serious safeguarding issue that a nursery’s registration will be suspended in order for a further investigation to be undertaken and if this investigation reveals further or wider issues with the policies and procedures at the setting, Ofsted will normally consider further enforcement action, including cancellation of registration. It appears that in the recently publicised case that the concerns regarding staff suitability checks prompted a wider investigation into the setting which ultimately led to more serious enforcement action being taken.
It is vitally important that providers seek specialist legal advice and assistance where Ofsted are seeking to take enforcement action. Often there are very short timeframes to appeal or challenge action taken by Ofsted, but assistance from specialists at a very early stage can increase the likelihood of preventing further enforcement action being taken.