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Client stories / Education recruitment

How an education recruitment agency got audit-ready in six weeks, and passed

An agency supplying staff to schools had an external compliance audit booked, two handbooks written at different times and several required documents that did not exist yet. Six weeks later, it passed.

Sector
Education recruitment
Location
South East England
Timeframe
About six weeks
Bought
Pay as you go, ten-hour blocks
  • PassedThe external audit, in August 2026
  • 6 weeksFrom first review to audit day
  • 10+Documents written or rebuilt
  • Same daySupplier contract for a payment scheme

Where the client started

An audit date in the diary, and a pile of documents that did not quite fit

The agency places teachers and support staff in schools. It had a small office team, no HR person and an external recruitment compliance audit booked for the summer.

The audit would look at two things: the written policies, and evidence that the business works that way day to day. Most of the right practices were in place. What was missing was the paperwork that proves it, and a few documents the auditor would expect to see that had never been written.

The brief was simple: every policy and procedure up to date and compliant before the auditor arrived.

The gaps, named

What we found and what we put in place

BeforeAfter
An office staff handbook written years earlier, with gaps against current lawA legal and compliance review, then an updated handbook with a version number and review date
No separate handbook for agency workersA new agency worker handbook, including absence and equality policies
A vetting policy that did not match how checks were really doneReviewed with tracked changes, so the team could accept or amend each point
No privacy notice for candidates and workersA UK GDPR privacy notice covering third parties, with outdated EU GDPR references corrected
Good processes that lived in people's headsWritten procedures for document control, client terms authorisation and supplier management
No record of internal training or internal auditsAn internal training policy, a staff training record and an internal audit schedule
Policies on file, but little evidence of day-to-day practiceRegisters and logs that show the practice, mapped to each section of the audit

How we worked

Section by section, against the clock

The audit date moved from July to early August, which helped. The work still had to fit around a busy term, school holidays and a small team.

  1. 1

    Read the audit checklist first

    We worked from the auditor's own pre-audit checklist, section by section, so every document answered a specific question.

  2. 2

    Fixed what mattered most first

    Handbooks and the vetting policy first, because the audit leans on them most. Governance documents followed.

  3. 3

    Pay as you go, with a running total

    The work was bought in pre-paid ten-hour blocks. The client had a timesheet at each stage and knew exactly what was left.

  4. 4

    Ready to use, on their letterhead

    Every document came back in the agency's own format, with the registers ready to fill in.

The result

Audit passed, and the next request handled the same day

The agency had its external audit in early August 2026 and passed. The client's message that afternoon was short: they had passed, and thank you.

A few weeks later the agency joined a prompt payment scheme, which asked for a standard contract with its suppliers. We drafted it the same day it was requested.

The documents now have owners, version numbers and review dates, so the next audit starts from a much better place than this one did.

What this shows

  • Audits test evidence of practice, not only policies. Registers and logs matter as much as handbooks.
  • A defined project does not need a retainer. Pay as you go worked well here.
  • Working from the auditor's own checklist keeps the work focused and the cost down.

The services behind this story

An audit, an accreditation or a tender coming up?

Twenty minutes, no charge. Tell us what the auditor or the buyer will ask for, and we will tell you what you already have, what is missing and what it would cost to close the gap.

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Client details are anonymised to protect confidentiality. What If HR Ltd, Caterham, Surrey.