The Access Group

Access Education People & Payroll

Our payroll service team is a specialised and engaged extension to your school or Trust. We will work closely with you to provide an efficient, flexible, secure, and reliable service which is delivered by a dedicated and qualified payroll professional.

Features

• Fully managed payroll service
• Managed payroll service
• Processing only payroll
• Emergency Payroll Service
• HMRC recognised
• CIPP PAS accredited (Payroll Assurance Scheme)

Benefits

• Access to expertise of our dedicated CIPP PAS accredited team
• Pay employees on time, every time
• Greatly reduce and streamline in-house payroll processing administration
• Ensure maximum accuracy with expertly controlled payroll processing
• Remove the need to manage complex requirements and local legislation
• Take the burden out of pension returns and payroll processing

£3.50 a user a month

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

Request an accessible format

If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at tendernotifications@theaccessgroup.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 14

Service ID

809651368808634

Contact

Access UK
01206322575
tendernotifications@theaccessgroup.com

Service scope

• Software add-on or extension: Yes
• What software services is the service an extension to: Access Education People
• Cloud deployment model: Private cloud
• Service constraints: Maintenance windows as detailed above are minimal with the service so that we use all reasonable efforts to ensure that the SaaS Services are available for 99.70% of each calendar month.; ; As a true SaaS solution customisation is not available although the product can be configured to meet all standard set up requirements.
• System requirements:
  • Internet Access
  • Supported system for the data to be used in

User support

• Email or online ticketing support: Email or online ticketing
• Support response times: This is dependent on Success Plan chosen initial response times are; P1 - up to 1 hr P2 - up to 2 hrs P3 - up to 4 hrs P4 - up to 1 Business Day
• User can manage status and priority of support tickets: Yes
• Online ticketing support accessibility: WCAG 2.1 AA or EN 301 549
• Phone support: Yes
• Phone support availability: 9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday
• Web chat support: No
• Onsite support: Yes, at extra cost
• Support levels: We provide 3 main support plans as detailed below. The Essential Plan The online service The Essential Plan is available to all Access customers as part of your license fee and provides you with easy-to-access online support for all your queries, facilitated via our Customer Success portal. The Standard Plan Get answers faster As a Standard Plan customer you benefit from faster response times and can access our support teams via telephone and live chat, as well as through our Customer Success portal. To help your team be more productive, you are provided with continued access to our e-learning content as well as a programme of Success webinars, designed to keep you up to date with new features and share best-practice advice and guidance. The Premier Plan Boost productivity with direct access to the experts and achieve a higher return on investment Our Premier Plan enables your team to achieve more and improve productivity through an ongoing relationship with your own designated Customer Success Manager. Your CSM will get to understand how you’re using the technology and will advise you on how to get more from it.
• Support available to third parties: No

Onboarding and offboarding

• Getting started: We use video technology to facilitate face to face contact, so you still get the hands-on benefit of working with an Access expert and our years of software deployment expertise. We have also invested in product eLearning, so your users can learn our products at their own pace. ; ; Our remote-first approach means that you have regular, accessible communication with us to keep you on track at every step of your journey and that your software can be delivered flexibly to suit the needs of your organisation and employees. ; ; All our FlightPath consultants and on-boarders are not only certified in our products, they are also trained and certified in our remote-first FlightPath implementation methodology, including training in effectively delivering remote customer projects.; ; Each FlightPath implementation programme from Access follows a well- defined journey with key milestones. These milestones represent – at a high level – the individual phases of your implementation journey. We use these milestones to help us both track and communicate progress towards successfully launching to your users. Our aim is to give you value from your investment as quickly and as fully as possible. Using our years of software deployment expertise, we have defined the FlightPath methodology.
• Service documentation: Yes
• Documentation formats: PDF
• End-of-contract data extraction: Our exit process is; The Renewals team receive the notification and undertake discussions with the client, the account manager and any other stakeholders. Once termination is confirmed, the “termination data requirements document” is sent to the client and a record created on the Offboarding register in line with internal processes. The status is set to “waiting customer”. On receipt of the offboarding document, Access Offboarding Review team will review the response, respond to any queries, annotate the record to reflect the customer requirements, upload the document and set the record to “not started” The Service Delivery team will pick up the ticket, arrange the return of data, decommission the system then they or hosting delete the data (production and backup unless “beyond access”(in which case it will be overwritten). Closure of the ticket triggers a confirmation to the customer that their data is deleted.
• End-of-contract process: Our exit process is; The Renewals team receive the notification and undertake discussions with the client, the account manager and any other stakeholders. Once termination is confirmed, the “termination data requirements document” is sent to the client and a record created on the Offboarding register in line with internal processes. The status is set to “waiting customer”. Note: In the event that a Customer does not return the document, they will be contacted again twice prior to termination and data will be deleted within 30 days from contract end as Access has no legal basis for processing from that point

Using the service

• Web browser interface: No
• Application to install: No
• Designed for use on mobile devices: No
• Service interface: No
• User support accessibility: None or don’t know
• API: Yes
• What users can and can't do using the API: Open API for the service. details can be provided upon request
• API documentation: No
• API sandbox or test environment: No
• Customisation available: Yes
• Description of customisation: There are 3 standard services that you can choose from

Scaling

• Independence of resources: Access hosted servers are monitored ensuring that the service can expand sufficiently if required. In addition to this we use automated monitoring tools to alert us when demands on resource meet or exceed certain thresholds (CPU, RAM, I/O, disk usage etc). The infrastructure is sized to deliver comfortable capacity for even our peak service periods, day-today usage currently runs at 1/3 total capacity.

Analytics

• Service usage metrics: No

Resellers

• Supplier type: Not a reseller

Staff security

• Staff security clearance: Conforms to BS7858:2019
• Government security clearance: Up to Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS)

Asset protection

• Knowledge of data storage and processing locations: Yes
• Data storage and processing locations: United Kingdom
• User control over data storage and processing locations: No
• Datacentre security standards: Complies with a recognised standard (for example CSA CCM version 3.0)
• Penetration testing frequency: At least every 6 months
• Penetration testing approach: ‘IT Health Check’ performed by a CHECK service provider
• Protecting data at rest: Physical access control, complying with SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• Data sanitisation process: Yes
• Data sanitisation type: Explicit overwriting of storage before reallocation
• Equipment disposal approach: Complying with a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v.30, CAS (Sanitisation) or ISO/IEC 27001

Data importing and exporting

• Data export approach: Standard excel reports are shared for customer use
• Data export formats:
  • CSV
  • Other
• Other data export formats: Excel
• Data import formats:
  • CSV
  • Other

Data-in-transit protection

• Data protection between buyer and supplier networks: TLS (version 1.2 or above)
• Data protection within supplier network: TLS (version 1.2 or above)

Availability and resilience

• Guaranteed availability: We provide an uptime guarantee of 99.7% per calendar month. This does not include scheduled maintenance windows.
• Approach to resilience: This is available upon request
• Outage reporting: Email alerts will be sent to customers

Identity and authentication

• User authentication needed: Yes
• User authentication:
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Username or password
• Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels: Access would be based on role profiles
• Access restriction testing frequency: At least every 6 months
• Management access authentication:
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Username or password

Audit information for users

• Access to user activity audit information: Users have access to real-time audit information
• How long user audit data is stored for: User-defined
• Access to supplier activity audit information: Users contact the support team to get audit information
• How long supplier audit data is stored for: User-defined
• How long system logs are stored for: User-defined

Standards and certifications

• ISO/IEC 27001 certification: Yes
• Who accredited the ISO/IEC 27001: Alcumus ISOQAR
• ISO/IEC 27001 accreditation date: 01/09/2014
• What the ISO/IEC 27001 doesn’t cover: Scope of Registration: The information security management system in relation to the organisations business, including: hosting, payroll services, financial & payment processing, screening, software development and delivery, client data and infrastructure in accordance with the statement of applicability V2.0
• ISO 28000:2007 certification: No
• CSA STAR certification: No
• PCI certification: No
• Cyber essentials: Yes
• Cyber essentials plus: No
• Other security certifications: No

Security governance

• Named board-level person responsible for service security: Yes
• Security governance certified: Yes
• Security governance standards: ISO/IEC 27001
• Information security policies and processes: Access adhere to ISO27001 certification with a dedicated Information Security team working with the business to ensure we uphold our obligations, policies and procedures.

Operational security

• Configuration and change management standard: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• Configuration and change management approach: All change requests shall be logged on a standardised system in use by the team, such as JIRA (Development), FreshServe (CHS), Service Cloud – Customer Support platform. A documented audit trail, maintained at the business unit level, containing relevant information shall always be maintained. This should include change request documentation, authorisation and the outcome of the change. No individual should be able to effect changes to production information systems without following the change process from end to end full details can be requested via emails
• Vulnerability management type: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• Vulnerability management approach: Patched and audited by our patch management system. All non-critical OS patches are applied within one calendar month of release, first into pre-production and then into production, as part of the scheduled maintenance window. AV Updates - Signatures are updated hourly. / Rules are reviewed at minimum every 3 months. Logs are reviewed at minimum every 3 months. Access staff responsible for the maintenance of our hosting services subscribe to industry newsletters, belong to various security forums and we additionally receive notifications from our vendors.
• Protective monitoring type: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• Protective monitoring approach: We have traffic monitoring and content based alerting on changes to the site and/or traffic flows implemented at infrastructure level. We keep daily historical reports from servers which provide the facility to identify when changes occurred. We proactively monitor third party suppliers vulnerability reporting and security fix availability. We patch any vulnerabilities found in a timescale appropriate for their level of severity. Our infrastructure response is within 1 hour in the SLA period 8am-6pm Monday – Friday.
• Incident management type: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example, CSA CCM v3.0 or ISO/IEC 27035:2011 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• Incident management approach: All incidents must be recorded on Access Group’s Incident Register (FreshService) in accordance with the Incident description as detailed in Definitions. An immediate assessment must be carried out, to determine whether the incident is a personal data breach and likely to result in a risk to the rights and freedoms of the data subjects affected by the personal data and an incident report must be started. No evidence can be removed or anything deleted until screenshots/snapshots/ file information is recorded as this may hinder an investigation. – see collection of evidence section.

Secure development

• Approach to secure software development best practice: Independent review of processes (for example CESG CPA Build Standard, ISO/IEC 27034, ISO/IEC 27001 or CSA CCM v3.0)

Public sector networks

• Connection to public sector networks: No

Social Value

• Social Value:

  Social Value

  • Fighting climate change
  • Equal opportunity
  • Wellbeing

  Fighting climate change

  Access UK Limited is a Software author and provide associated services, including Hosting, Payroll Bureau and Payment services. We recognise that although we do not undertake manufacturing, our day to day operations will have impact on the environment at global, national, and local level. We are committed to the care of the environment and the prevention of pollution. •Access ensures that all our operations are carried out in with the minimum adverse effect on the environment but implementing many available resources and approved processes •We protect the environment by striving to prevent and minimise our contribution to pollution of land, air, and water •We keep wastage to a minimum and maximise the efficient use of materials and resources, and manage disposal of all waste in a responsible manner •We use energy, water, and natural resources wisely and prevent pollution by minimising waste, recycling whenever possible and properly disposing of waste that cannot be recycled. •Our management processes are developed to ensure that environmental factors are considered during planning and implementation •We raise employee awareness and encourage best practices for sustainability at work

  Equal opportunity

  We want everyone to feel at home at Access, knowing that they are valued for what they do, not who they are. We want people to feel that they truly belong here regardless of their age, gender, race, sexual orientation, or anything else that makes them individual; after all, if we were all the same it would be a pretty dull place. We love the fact that we’re all different. Having more diverse perspectives at work improves how we run our business, helps us support our customers, and when you think about it, it's just more fun. For us, this all starts with helping everyone feel part of the family and being at their best every day, making Access a place where everyone can love what they do and do what they love. We all have regular check-ins with our leaders, take part in monthly employee surveys, have lots of chances to share our views and ask for help, and with our own learning system, 'Access Shine', we really can make things even better each and every day. At Access we'll always hire the best candidate but we're continually looking for creative ways to increase the mix of diverse candidates into our recruitment process. On the basis that you ‘have to see it, to be it’, one thing we're doing is sharing more stories to celebrate the wonderful diverse range of talent we have at Access. It is important for us that our employees understand and reflect the customers and communities we support, and we want everyone to feel at home here, knowing that they are valued for what they do, not who they are. We want people to feel that they truly belong here regardless of their age, gender, race, sexual orientation, or anything else that makes them individual.

  Wellbeing

  Access places specific emphasis on the health and wellbeing of its staff and provides a “Well-being” hub in workspace that provides support for Mental Health, Finances, Social, Physical, Emotional and purpose. Assistance from Health Assured is available for all staff and there are training resources for “working in the new normal” and “Mental health and wellbeing” . Access also has “well-being” champions throughout the organisation. This is supported by monthly employee “check in” surveys and offers of flexible working for staff to meet caring commitments.

Pricing

• Price: £3.50 a user a month
• Discount for educational organisations: No
• Free trial available: No

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

Request an accessible format

If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at tendernotifications@theaccessgroup.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.