A new government-backed free recruitment service for schools and local authorities threatens jobs and should be scrapped, according to the chief executive of an education job board.

The Schools Recruitment Service (SRS), launched in September, allows schools and local authorities to post vacancies free onto a website, www.schoolsrecruitment.dcsf.gov.uk, and aims to establish a talent pool from which schools and local authorities can draw.

Described by schools minister Vernon Coaker “as a watershed in how schools recruit”, according to the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), more than 50 local authorities have already signed up to the £1.3m initiative backed by the DCSF.

Paul Howells, chief executive of education job board eteach.com, told Recruiter that the new service was “a disaster” and “a total waste of money”. And he warned “if it gains traction in the marketplace, it will lead to a loss of business and jobs in job boards, recruitment agencies
and headhunters”.

Howells accused the government of creating a direct competitor to private business “with our own money”. That’s not in their mandate,” he argued. “It doesn’t offer anything new that isn’t already offered by existing providers,” adding “the market already has three or four players who are already driving the cost of recruitment advertising down”.

Indeed, he said it would cost eteach’s customers more because SRS charged eteach for using it.

Dean Kelly, chief executive of Synarbor, also criticised the SRS. Schools already had a variety of alternatives, he said, that were better than what DCFS was offering. These included the Times Educational Supplement and other job boards.

In contrast, he said the DCSF “haven’t got a database of candidates to give it traction”. In addition, he said the site only had about 20 part-time or job share jobs “that can’t be filled anywhere else”.

Kelly claimed that that the “IT enabled system” was likely to end up as a box-ticking exercise. This was inappropriate for recruiting professionals working with children, where “personality and people matching” are important, he said. “You might get the odd school placing a vacancy on the DCSF site because it is free, but when they find it doesn’t work they will go back to what has proved successful in the past,” said Kelly.

A DCSF spokesperson told Recruiter that it was “a bit ridiculous to knock the new service when it has only just been set up”, adding “it will take some time” for vacancies to build up. “We don’t agree that there are better services out there. This is about improving current recruitment practice in schools by using the latest applicant tracking technology in advertising and recruitment, the service will save schools huge amounts of money and time.”