Following CMA intervention, ESS has offered and signed binding
commitments meaning eligible schools can now apply to exit
longer-term software contracts a year early.
Education Software Solutions Limited (ESS) is the largest
provider of school management information system (MIS) software
in England and Wales. In the UK, most state schools are required
to have an MIS in place to manage information on staff and
students including for handling attendance and safeguarding.
In April 2022, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA)
launched an investigation into whether ESS’s conduct was
anti-competitive by effectively limiting schools’ ability to
choose an alternative MIS software provider and excluding its
competitors. The CMA was concerned that customers of ESS –
meaning certain schools in England and Wales – had to move from
one-year contracts to three-year contracts, without having
sufficient time to make alternative arrangements with other
software providers. The CMA was concerned that these changes
reduced schools’ choice of MIS software provider and made it
difficult for other providers to compete with ESS to win
business.
To address the CMA’s concerns, the CMA has secured ESS’s offer
and signing of legally binding commitments that will enable
certain schools – meaning those which had genuinely considered
switching providers but reasonably concluded that they did not
have sufficient time to do so – to apply to an independent
adjudicator for a 12-month break clause. If granted, the clause
will allow them to exit their current three-year contract with
ESS on 31 March 2024 and choose an alternative provider, should
they so wish.
Ann Pope, Senior Director of Antitrust at the CMA, said:
This break clause will give eligible schools 12 months to decide
whether to exit their current contract and, if they do, to switch
to a new provider – longer than ESS originally offered. The
commitments secured from ESS will also bolster competition in the
MIS market, giving schools more choice and ESS’s rivals a further
chance to compete.
Schools can apply for a
break clause from noon today until 10 February 2023. Any
applicants will be notified by the independent adjudicator –
Evelyn Partners – as to whether they have been successful by no
later than 31 March 2023.
The CMA’s decision to accept ESS’s legally binding commitments
brings this investigation to a close. The CMA will continue to
monitor ESS’s compliance with the commitments and intervene if it
suspects a breach.
More information can be found on the CMA’s investigation into conduct
of Education Software Solutions Limited case page.
Notes to editors
- The commitments provided by ESS are done so voluntarily.
Commitments are designed to address the CMA’s competition
concerns; the giving of commitments does not imply a finding that
competition law has been infringed. In this case, the CMA notes
that ESS maintains that its behaviour was not anti-competitive.
- Find out more information on how to apply to the adjudicator,
Evelyn Partners, on the ESS website from noon today. Evelyn
Partners has been appointed, with the CMA’s approval, as an
entirely independent adjudicator.
- The CMA opened its investigation as it had reasonable grounds
for suspecting that ESS may have infringed the Chapter II
prohibition of the Competition Act 1998 (Act) in the supply of
MIS software in the UK.
- The responses to the CMA’s consultation are summarised, on an
anonymous basis, in the decision. As is usual process, the CMA
does not intend to publish the full responses.
