TUPE and Academy Conversion: What Happens to Staff

For most staff, this is the only part of conversion they care about, and reasonably so. Governance structures and funding agreements are abstract. Whether your job, your pay, your pension and your terms survive the change is not.

The reassuring answer is that staff transfer to the academy trust on their existing terms and conditions, protected by law. The fuller answer involves some nuance, and staff deserve that nuance rather than a blanket reassurance that later turns out to have been overstated.

This article sets out how TUPE works in conversion, what genuinely transfers, what can change afterwards, and how to run the process well.

What TUPE Does

The Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 apply when a business or undertaking transfers to a new employer. Academy conversion is such a transfer.

Under TUPE, employees transfer automatically to the new employer, in this case the academy trust, with their existing contracts of employment. Continuity of service is preserved. Terms and conditions transfer with them. Dismissal for a reason connected to the transfer is automatically unfair, subject to limited exceptions.

In practical terms, on the day of conversion your teaching assistant has the same job, the same pay, the same hours and the same continuous service, with a different employer named on the contract.

Who the Employer Is Before and After

This matters because it determines who runs the process.

In community and voluntary controlled schools, the local authority is the employer. In foundation and voluntary aided schools, the governing body is. After conversion, the academy trust is the employer in all cases.

Where the local authority is the outgoing employer, they lead on their statutory obligations, but the school and the trust are closely involved and the school should not assume the authority will handle everything.

What Transfers

• Contracts of employment, including pay, hours and job role.
• Continuity of service.
• Accrued holiday entitlement.
• Collective agreements in force at the point of transfer.
• Recognition of trade unions, where the entity retains its distinct identity.
• Most liabilities connected to employment, including outstanding claims.

What Is Different

Pensions. Pensions are treated differently from other terms under TUPE, but academy conversion has specific protections. Teachers remain eligible for the Teachers' Pension Scheme, and academy trusts must offer access. Support staff remain in the Local Government Pension Scheme, and academy trusts are required to become admitted bodies. In practice, pension arrangements continue, but the administrative work is significant and should be started early.

Staff not employed by the school. Agency staff, contractors and staff employed by a third party providing a service do not automatically transfer in the same way, and their position needs specific consideration.

Staff on the boundary. Cleaners, catering staff and site staff employed through a local authority service, or staff who work partly at your school and partly elsewhere, require careful analysis. Get advice rather than assuming.

Can Terms Change After Transfer?

This is the question staff really want answered, and it deserves an honest response rather than a comfortable one.

Changes to terms for a reason connected to the transfer are void, subject to limited exceptions. This is a real protection and it is why the reassurance that terms transfer is accurate.

However, over time, an academy trust can change terms for reasons unconnected to the transfer, through the ordinary processes of consultation and agreement that any employer uses. Academies are also able to set their own pay and conditions for new appointments, so staff joining after conversion may be on different terms from colleagues who transferred.

The honest position to communicate is this. Your terms transfer and are protected. Nothing changes because of conversion. In the future, like any employer, the trust may propose changes, and if it does it must follow a proper process and cannot impose them because of the transfer.

Telling staff that nothing will ever change is a promise you cannot keep, and being reminded of it in three years is worse than being straight now.

The Legal Process

Informing. The outgoing employer must inform recognised trade unions or elected employee representatives about the fact of the transfer, when it will happen and why, and about any measures envisaged. The incoming employer must provide information about any measures it envisages.

Consulting. Where measures are envisaged, there is a duty to consult with a view to reaching agreement. Measures include anything that would materially change working practices or conditions.

Employee liability information. The outgoing employer must provide specified information about transferring employees to the incoming employer, in good time before the transfer. The regulations set a minimum period, and in practice this needs starting well ahead.

Consequences of getting it wrong. Failure to inform and consult properly can result in tribunal awards of up to thirteen weeks' gross pay per affected employee. This is not a technicality to be rushed.

Take proper employment law advice. Since the conversion support grant ended in January 2025 this is a cost your school or trust meets directly, and it is one of the areas where skimping is a false economy.

Running It Well

The legal minimum and good practice are not the same thing.

Tell staff early. Before you are required to. The formal TUPE process is separate from the statutory consultation on conversion, and both come after the point at which staff should already know conversion is being explored.

Let the trust meet staff. A session where staff can ask the trust directly, without school leaders answering on their behalf, is worth more than any letter.

Deal with the boundary cases individually. The teaching assistant on a term time only contract, the cleaner employed through a local authority contract, the person who works two days at your school and three at another. These people worry most and are told least. Speak to them personally.

Engage unions properly. Union representatives who are informed early and treated as part of the process are usually constructive. Ones who feel presented with a fait accompli are not.

Answer questions in writing. A running frequently asked questions document, updated as questions arise and circulated to all staff, prevents rumour better than anything else.

Be honest about what you do not know. Staff can cope with uncertainty. They cope badly with confident answers that turn out to be wrong.

From Our Experience

Many leaders tell us that the staff who worried most were not the ones they expected.

We often see teaching staff take conversion in their stride while support staff, who are frequently on lower pay, less secure contracts and with fewer options, carry significant anxiety. They are also, in many schools, the group least likely to be in a meeting or to ask a question in front of others.

Schools that handle this well make a specific effort. A separate session for support staff. A named person they can ask privately. Individual conversations with anyone whose position is unusual.

We also see, repeatedly, that the damage in conversions comes from silence rather than from bad news. A school that says nothing for six weeks because there is nothing to report has, from the staffroom's point of view, said nothing for six weeks. A fortnightly update that sometimes says there is no news at all is far better received.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will staff keep their pay and terms?

Yes. Staff transfer on their existing terms and conditions, with continuity of service preserved.

What happens to pensions?

Teachers remain eligible for the Teachers' Pension Scheme. Support staff remain in the Local Government Pension Scheme, with the trust becoming an admitted body. The arrangements continue, though the administration takes time.

Can staff refuse to transfer?

An employee can object to transferring, but the effect is generally that their employment ends at the point of transfer rather than that they remain with the previous employer. This is rarely in an individual's interest and anyone considering it should take advice.

Can the trust make redundancies at conversion?

Dismissal for a reason connected to the transfer is automatically unfair, subject to limited exceptions. Conversion is not a redundancy mechanism. Genuine redundancy situations arising for other reasons follow the normal legal process.

Do new staff get the same terms?

Not necessarily. Academies can set their own pay and conditions for new appointments. Many trusts choose to mirror national terms, but they are not required to.

Does union recognition continue?

Where the transferring entity retains its distinct identity, recognition generally transfers. In practice most trusts recognise the main education unions.

How long does the TUPE process take?

It runs alongside the wider conversion and should start well before the transfer date. Our guide to the conversion timeline sets out the sequence.

A Common Misconception

The misconception we meet most often, on both sides, is that TUPE either guarantees everything forever or protects nothing.

Neither is right. TUPE provides real, meaningful protection at the point of transfer and for reasons connected to it. It does not freeze employment terms permanently, because no legal mechanism does that for any employer.

The useful framing for staff is that conversion itself changes nothing about their employment, and that any future change would have to be proposed, consulted on and justified in exactly the way it would in any organisation. That is both accurate and reassuring, which is a better combination than a reassurance that is not quite true.

Questions for Leaders

• Have we told staff before we were legally required to?
• Do we have proper employment law advice, or are we relying on the local authority?
• Have we identified everyone whose contractual position is unusual?
• Has anyone spoken to our support staff separately?
• Are our unions engaged, or informed?
• When did we last communicate, even to say there is no news?

Our Perspective

Conversion is experienced by staff as something happening to them rather than something they are part of. That is largely unavoidable, since the decision sits with the governing body, but how it feels is entirely within a school's control.

The schools that come through conversion with their staff culture intact are the ones that communicated early, often and honestly, including about the things they could not promise. The ones that struggle are usually the ones that said very little and hoped the legal protections would speak for themselves.

Your staff will still be there after conversion, teaching the same children. How they feel about the process is not a side issue. It is most of what determines whether the change delivers anything.

How Can Jarvis Education Help?

Jarvis Education supports schools and trusts through academy conversion, including the staff communication and consultation that sits alongside the legal process.

We help plan and run staff engagement, prepare leaders for difficult questions, facilitate sessions with staff and unions, and make sure the people whose positions are unusual are not overlooked. We work alongside your employment lawyers rather than replacing them.

Our consultants have led schools and trusts, inspected schools, and supported MATs through growth, merger and rebrokering.

Explore our academy conversion and MAT growth support, or contact us for a conversation.