Government Actuarys Department
The Government Actuarys Department (GAD) has marked 10 years since it began supporting the Department for Education (DfE) on an alternative to commercial insurance for schools.
The Risk Protection Arrangement (RPA) is available to academies and Local Authority Maintained Schools in England.
GAD has supported the RPA since its inception in 2014, from the scheme design phase, through to implementation, and to expansion of its cover.
The scheme has grown to cover more than 10,000 schools in England over the past 10 years. It was set up initially for Academy Trusts, then in April 2020 the scheme expanded its original membership to include Local Authority Maintained Schools.
The scheme has been developed over time and GAD has worked with the RPA to identify gaps in the insurance market for schools, including expanding its cover to offer protection for overseas travel and cyber incidents.
GAD has supported the government throughout the project. Credit: Shutterstock
Projects completed
The GAD team has supported the RPA by conducting regular provisioning reviews (planning for future costs and claims) and pricing analysis. These feed directly into DfEs budgets to ensure the expected costs of the scheme are covered.
GAD has also supported and evolved with the RPAs changing priorities over time. This has included:
- initiatives to increase resilience to flooding and crime
- investment back into schools and build-back-better projects
- analysis to support decarbonisation of the school estate
- considering the impact of climate change
- support during the COVID-19 pandemic where GAD helped build and review a model which estimated the value of trips cancelled due to COVID-19
Ways of working
GAD has built on the partnership with the RPA since the start in 2014. We act as trusted advisers with DfE, and our actuaries are present at senior stakeholder boards. GADs staff secondments to the RPA (since 2016) have further strengthened this collaborative programme.
We have developed interactive dashboards maps and visualisations to help inform strategic and investment decisions and to help with analysis and technology. As the scheme matures, we expect GAD will continue to support DfE in maximising the opportunity from the increasing volume of RPA data available to inform future strategic decisions.
Reflecting on the past 10 years of collaboration, GAD actuary Gina Mosquera said: GADs work on the RPA has been a partnership where we have developed the offer and our relationship with DfE.
In client feedback, DfE said: From our perspective, the relationship has been a resounding success; our product, our service, is generally considere