Summary - This section provides guidance from the DfES relating to enusuring EIPs are accountable along with examples of Service Level Agreements devised by Education Improvement Partnerships (EIPs) around the country to help other partnerships in creating their own. A copy of the partnership self and peer review instrument for monitoring and evaluation is also provided.

Partnerships and local authorities will need to agree protocols or service level agreements to cover the 'rules' of Education Improvement Partnerships that take on functions devolved from the authority, and how groups of schools in that partnership will be collectively accountable for delivering particular services and meeting defined targets.

These agreements should specify:

1) expected inputs, outcomes, monitoring and evaluation processes, as well as procedures which could be taken to rectify any problems;

2) the resources available;

3) internal lines of accountability. Partnership members will want clarity among themselves on leadership, management and governance;
 
4) external lines of accountability - where groups of schools take on responsibility for delivery of named functions from a local authority, and how the delivery duties of the Education Improvement Partnership fit with the local authority's wider Children's and Young People's Plan;

5) what action will be taken if individual members fail to contribute as envisaged by the Education Improvement Partnership;

6) How performance will be managed, for example: 
i. benchmarking against other partnerships through self-evaluation and peer review – a development of the model in EiC
ii. an inspection so that themes of common interest can be  highlighted. This could be requested by the partnership or initiated by Ofsted, and Ofsted has agreed to this approach
iii. group performance measures perhaps to quantify overall improvement and the narrowing of the attainment gap between high and low performing schools within the partnership. These would usefully complement individual school performance measures.

7) How to minimise bureaucracy to ensure that the benefits from working in this way outweigh the costs.

These arrangements do not detract from the continued responsibility of local authorities to secure the quality of school education in their areas.  In particular, local authorities will still have a duty to support and challenge schools causing concern, and will retain their powers of intervention – for example, when a school is placed in special measures – even where an Education Improvement Partnership is supporting that school.  However, if arrangements are clearly expressed, there is scope for groups of schools to take on significantly enhanced roles and funding from the local authority.

We have now created a model SLA and Memorandum of Understanding, as promised. You are free to adopt them if you wish or use them as a basis for devising for your own agreements. We do not intend for them to act merely as documents, but as dynamic instruments capable of underpinning effective partnership working. To this end we would welcome your comments, and copies of SLAs and Memorandums of Understanding currently in use, so we can continue to improve our models and share effective practice.

Model Service Level Agreement ( 120 Kb)

Model Memorandum of Understanding ( 74 Kb)

In addition to our own model SLA and Memorandum of understanding we are happy to share copies of SLAs from emerging Education Improvement Partnerships. We hope to be able to provide many more examples as other EIP SLAs are completed        

Please click here ( 40 Kb) for the Rochdale SLA.

Please click here ( 53 Kb)for the protocol used by Barnsbury Infant School and Goldsmith Primary School, Woking. 

Please click here ( 87 Kb) for the Tameside Excellence Cluster's EIP agreement.  

Monitoring and evaluation are also important aspects of ensuring partnerships remain accountable as performance is a key consideration in any overall assessment. To help partnerships in this respect we have developed a self and peer framework which can be used either as a guide or an actual evaluation instrument depending on how closely it fits with need.  The documents which comprise this self and peer review framework are below. 

EiC Self and Peer Review 2006: Framework and Guidance

Overall Partnership Self Review Criteria 2006 ( 216 Kb)

Guidance for Partnership Self and Peer Review 2006 ( 49 Kb)

Data Summary Sheet Spring 2006 - Annex A ( 89 Kb)

The strand documents below do not form part of the SPR framework. They may, however, be used as aids to evidence gathering where Strand Programmes are relevant to the partnership. Please note that they should be seen as complementary to other aids and reveiw processes that may have been devised by either, the Department or partnerships themselves.

G&T Criteria Spring 2005 ( 97 Kb)

LM Criteria Spring 2005 ( 112 Kb)

LSU Criteria Spring 2005 ( 56 Kb)

CLC Criteria Spring 2005 ( 146 Kb)

EiCAZ Criteria Spring 2005 ( 122 Kb)

Aimhigher Criteria Spring 2005 ( 40 Kb)

ECM links to EiC Spring 2005 - Annex C ( 60 Kb)   

LEA Ofsted Links to EiC Spring 2005 - Annex D ( 135 Kb)