Service Availability & Support Policy

1. Availability

1.1 Target. We aim for 99% availability of the Service in each calendar month, matching clause 11.2 of the Terms of Service.

99% allows roughly 7 hours of unavailability per month. We expect to do considerably better than that in practice.

1.2 What counts as unavailable. The Service is unavailable when an authenticated user cannot sign in or cannot load the application, for reasons within our control, for a continuous period of more than five minutes.

1.3 What is excluded from the calculation:

scheduled maintenance notified in advance under section 2;

emergency maintenance necessary to address a security risk;

failure of your own internet connection, device, browser or network;

failure or degradation of a third-party infrastructure provider, where we have taken reasonable steps to mitigate and to restore service;

suspension under the Acceptable Use Policy or for non-payment;

events outside our reasonable control.

1.4 No service credits. This is a target, not a guaranteed service level, and no service credits are payable, unless a separate signed agreement with you says otherwise. Section 7 explains how a bespoke service level can be agreed.

1.5 Status: We will notify you by email of any incident affecting availability for more than one hour.

2. Maintenance

2.1 Scheduled maintenance is carried out where possible outside UK school hours — normally between 20:00 and 06:00 UK time, and preferably during school holidays for anything substantial.

2.2 We give at least 5 working days’ notice of scheduled maintenance expected to cause an interruption, by email and by notice in the Service.

2.3 Emergency maintenance may be carried out without notice where necessary to protect the security or integrity of the Service. We will tell you as soon as practicable, and explain afterwards what happened.

3. Support

3.1 How to reach us. Email support@effectiveclerking.co.uk, or use the in-app support link.

3.2 Hours. Monday to Friday, 09:00 to 17:00 UK time, excluding public holidays.

3.3 Response targets. These are targets for a first substantive response, not for resolution.

3.4 We set the priority in good faith on the information available, and will tell you if we disagree with your assessment.

3.5 What support covers: help using the Service, investigating and fixing faults, account and billing queries, and assistance with data export.

3.6 What support does not cover: governance, legal or professional advice; drafting or reviewing your documents; training beyond our published guidance; or support for your own devices, network or other software.

3.7 Please do not paste meeting content or third parties’ personal data into support requests. Give us the document or action reference number instead and we will look it up. This keeps personal data out of our support inbox, which is better for everyone.

4. Incidents

4.1 When there is an incident affecting availability or data, we will: tell affected customers by email as soon as we reasonably can; give an estimate of impact and expected restoration; update at least every 2 hours while a P1 continues; and provide a written summary within 5 working days of resolution for any P1.

4.2 Where an incident involves personal data, our Incident Response Plan and the notification obligations in clause 4.7 of the Data Processing Agreement apply. We notify affected customers of a personal data breach without undue delay and in any event within 24 hours of becoming aware of it.

5. Backup and recovery

5.1 We take automated daily backups of the database, retained for 7 days. Point-in-time recovery is not currently enabled.

5.2 Recovery objectives: target recovery point objective 24 hours; target recovery time objective 24 hours.

5.3 Recovery procedures are documented and tested at least annually. Our Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery Plan is available to customers on request.

5.4 Backups are for our disaster recovery, not your archive. Export and keep your own copies of documents you need to retain. The Service provides export features for exactly this purpose.

6. Data export and exit

6.1 You can export your content at any time during your subscription.

6.2 Export what you need before you cancel or your account is terminated — access ends immediately once that happens. If you close your account, you then have 30 days to ask us to reopen it, which restores full access including export, before we permanently delete your content.

6.3 We will not hold your data hostage. There is no charge for export, and no requirement to settle a dispute before exporting.

6.4 This reflects the Department for Education’s cloud solution standard, which expects “data export to an open standard or commonly used format” and “a timely process for data transfer in an open standard or neutral format if you end the contract”.

7. Bespoke service levels

Where a trust or local authority requires a contractual service level with credits, a shorter breach notification window, a named contact, or a specific recovery objective, we are willing to discuss it as part of a written agreement. Contact support@effectiveclerking.co.uk

8. Third-party dependencies

The Service depends on infrastructure operated by others. Their current status pages:

Where one of these fails, the Service may be degraded or unavailable through no act of ours. We will tell you what is happening and, where we can, provide a workaround — for example, the Service remains usable for viewing and editing when the AI drafting provider is unavailable.

9. Changes

We may update this policy. Changes that reduce the availability target or lengthen response targets will be notified at least 30 days in advance.