A government service that helps schools switch energy suppliers is to close this month, the Department for Education has said.
Crown Commercial Service’s (CCS) School Switch service allowed schools and academies to access energy supply quotations and switch supplier, but the DfE has now said it will close on 31 March.
The agreement was for the service to run for four years when set up in 2018, and the DfE said today it would not be renewed or extended.
Instead, it said CCS is supporting schools and academies to join its “main aggregated agreements”.
The service had been criticised by heads in the past few weeks for including Russian state supplier Gazprom amongst the 11 firms it supplied quotes from.
Earlier this month, the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) urged the government to review the issue as a “matter of urgency” and remove Gazprom from the list.
But, responding to today’s announcement, Hayley Dunn, business leadership specialist at ASCL, said that, while the service may not have worked “as well as it might” for schools, it was “extremely unfortunate” that the decision to end the service had come when there was “more uncertainty in the energy marketplace than ever before”.
She said that energy prices were already “spiralling upwards” before the Russian invasion of Ukraine and that school business leaders may now be under pressure “to extricate themselves from contracts with suppliers linked to the Putin regime”.
Dunn added: “Schools and colleges exiting energy contracts are likely to feel the impact in higher costs and this means many will be significantly concerned about changing supplier at the present time.
“The government needs to be clear about the reasons behind ending the School Switch contract and outline the alternative arrangements that will replace it, as well as being on standby to help schools and colleges with practical support to access alternative energy deals that don’t break their already hard-pressed budgets.”
The move to close the service was also criticised today by Stephen Morales, chief executive of the Institute of School Business Leadership (ISBL), who said it should not be shut without an alternative in place.
“If you’re going to close something, you need to know what the alternatives are,” he said.
“The DfE needs to be clear on the benefits of the alternative they are suggesting, and, as for closing the school switch service, they need to be clear on the rationale for closing it and not extending.”
The move to shut the service comes as schools grapple with record-high energy prices.
