COVID-19 advice for clients
Our advice is being reviewed daily and CEFM is constantly monitoring primary websites for updates.
If you have any queries or wish to discuss any of the guidance provided by the government or other primary sources, we recommend you contact our help and advice line in the first instance. To ensure we can cope with the increased call volumes, we have increased the number of advisors available via the helpline.
Unfortunately, we are finding that every announcement is quickly being reformatted by large numbers of advisors and sent multiple times to inboxes and uploaded to websites. This is leading to overload, confusion and a lack of clarity. This form of secondary guidance can quickly become out-of-date and inaccurate.
In response, we are recommending our clients use the key primary information sources including:
Coronavirus (COVID-19): financial support for education, early years and children’s social care
Coronavirus (COVID‑19) guidance and support
Education and childcare -Guidance for teachers, school leaders, carers, parents and students
School governance: coronavirus (COVID-19)
Actions for schools during the coronavirus outbreak
Guidance on shielding and protecting people who are clinically extremely vulnerable from COVID-19
Guidance for the public on the mental health and wellbeing aspects of coronavirus (COVID-19)
Coronavirus outbreak FAQs: what you can and can’t do
NHS Coronavirus (COVID-19) information and advice
ACAS Coronavirus (COVID-19): advice for employers and employees
ACAS Coronavirus and mental health at work
HSE Coronavirus (COVID-19): working safely
We have made workplace adjustments to protect our employees and to ensure our service, including our help and advice line, remains fully operational.
Within the personnel section of our website we have included a model policy to provide advice and guidance for homeworking during the outbreak of COVID-19 and an information pack on COVID-19 and data protection.
CEFM service provision statement in response to COVID-19
March 2021 (reviewed without change)
CEFM is following all government advice to minimise risk to our staff, clients, suppliers and other partners. All staff have been briefed on the latest advice on how to minimise the spread of the virus.
Critical is our ability to maintain our service levels to clients, with minimal disruption.
We have robust systems in place to allow all employees to switch to remote working without impacting on the way our clients can interact with us.
All existing telephone numbers and logins will remain valid without the need for change.
In line with government advice, we are asking our staff to minimise their use of public transport and to avoid all face-to-face meetings where possible. Where we would normally deliver our service face-to-face our staff will, where essential, visit your premises for on-site meetings, however, we will offer alternatives such as online meetings, telephone calls/conferences or postponement if you wish. Further details on how we will minimise risk to both you and our employees will be provided at the time of the booking enquiry. We have risk assessed all our staff and have put in place safeguards to protect those groups who are currently identified as, or are associated with, high risk.
We are following government advice and are continuing to operate a remote working regime, which to date has had minimal impact on our service delivery.
The ‘lock down’ regime has created some postal disruption and restrictions on the use of external printing agencies. Where possible we have switched to electronic forms of delivery (such as emailing CEFMinform and Education Updates) to ensure you continue to receive our latest updates in a timely manner.
The CEFM team will make every effort to keep clients and contacts informed of our actions and contingency arrangements.
This statement will be kept under review throughout the impact period and will be updated as necessary.