Real BSF costs from schools who have gone through it

[siuko]

Does anyone have any real costs from any schools who have been through the BSF process?

If I am to argue my point between what the SMT will get from £1million+ of BSF IT funding plus having to pay for the managed service - against opting out of the BSF funding and keeping 3 ICT staff and having to fund the ICT purchasing themselves it would help to have the details of exact running costs involved.

I understand the basics about charges per pupil for the managed service, but what about how much a new pc would cost through the preferred bidder, how much it cost to add network points etc etc....

For example - buying 1 pc from the preferred bidder at their set overprice of £500 against buying 2 pc's from compenents and building them ourselves for £500...

If anyone can shed some light I would be grateful.

[Ruthierhyme]

For example - buying 1 pc from the preferred bidder at their set overprice of £500 against buying 2 pc's from compenents and building them ourselves for £500...

No advice sorry .. just wanted to say that's the sort of flexibility that is so admirable.

[Grommit]

Does anyone have any real costs from any schools who have been through the BSF process?

If I am to argue my point between what the SMT will get from £1million+ of BSF IT funding plus having to pay for the managed service - against opting out of the BSF funding and keeping 3 ICT staff and having to fund the ICT purchasing themselves it would help to have the details of exact running costs involved.

I understand the basics about charges per pupil for the managed service, but what about how much a new pc would cost through the preferred bidder, how much it cost to add network points etc etc....

For example - buying 1 pc from the preferred bidder at their set overprice of £500 against buying 2 pc's from compenents and building them ourselves for £500...

If anyone can shed some light I would be grateful.

Well lets just say..

Contultancy fee's are gonna be 200k plus
add £100 per student for Managed Services... BSF pays for the first year but the other 4 the school has to fund.

[Ric_]

All the costs are based upon whatever is negotiated for your area... it all comes down to that output spec again.

[siuko]

Ok - so for the school I am at which is expected to have a pupil level of 1050 this would give the very basic managed service costs at

1050 Students X £100 per student = £105,000 per year (approximately)

1 IT Technician + 1 Network Manager + 1 System Manager = £54,000 per year (approximately)

So far this would leave £49,000 per year left for ICT purchases.

What are peoples standard yearly budgets? (I've not had a proper budget in a few years)

These costs still don't included addition costs that may be placed for addition requirements (this information would probably be the most useful as its likely to be the more expensive and best profitability for the preferred bidder).

I also still don't understand so far if this is the case the preferred bidder would make 4 years X £105,000 - £420,000 over the course of the contract and this does not come close to the £1million+ that will be provided at the start?
Where are they making up the rest of their money or is the rest of the £1million+ provided by the Government? Or is all the £1million+ provided by the government (that would be worrying)

[CyberNerd]

The company get a setup cost of around £1400 per pupil !

[srochford]

1 IT Technician + 1 Network Manager + 1 System Manager = £54,000 per year (approximately)

Are you sure about those figures? I know some schools pay a pittance but that seems very low! Remember that even if your salary is (say) £20k that's not what it costs the school to employ you - you've got to add NI contributions, pension (possibly) and any other "on-costs" which I've forgotten

[siuko]

Yeah I guess you are right...

Those amounts are for the gross (think thats the term) pay that shows on our wage slips.

It also shows the deductions for NI Tax etc. - so I don't actually know if there would be any extra payments behind the scenes sort of thing.

[broc]

Most of the costs mentioned previously are estimates as so few BSF schools have been up & running long enough to know what the true costs are. You will not find a business case that justifies (financially) BSF.

The ICT 'capital' comes from the Government or possibly via PFI depending upon how an individual school is being funded. Schools must agree to pay an amount per student per year for the duration of the contract. Those schools that wish to have equipment 'refreshed' during the lifetime of the contract must agree to pay more. The amount will vary by LA, and is determined by the level of service delivered, which is in turn defined in the draft output specifcation used by the bidders for the contract to set their price.

Retained equipment carried over from the old environment can be supported, for an additional payment.

Schools can negotiate additional support, resources etc for an additional payment.

Breakages, vandalism, out of warranty wear & tear repairs and replacements are not included in the cost unless specifically requested, in which case they will be subject to an additional payment.

Putting it bluntly, the LAs challenge is to get as much as possible into the output spec, the bidders challenge is to have as little as possible, that way they can charge lots more for 'extras'.

Make sense?

[siuko]

So if the £1million payment comes from the government or through from pfi...

Why exactly does the managed service need to be there?

I guess I'm not understanding the full picture but I thought that it went as follows...

Business stumps up lots of £££ to build school - business gets back initial cash by school paying for managed service etc?

If the £1million+ comes from the government why involve the business at all in the IT side?

[broc]

The up front capital investment is to pay for network infrastructure, servers, client workstations, classroom technology (IWB/projectors, audio etc), phone systems, video conferencing, software etc.
If you want the capital investment, you have to agree to pay for the managed service.

The managed service charge covers the cost of employing & training the staff who will support the service, provide a helpdesk, provide network maintenance etc. Basically the jobs that school ICT support staff do.

They way it works:

Govt is short of cash, so needs someone to pay for rebuilding of secondary schools after decades of neglect. It asks private companies (PFI) to build schools and fit them out with shiny new ICT bits & bobs and in return it promises to make the LAs pay the money back, with interest. In some cases (refurbishment) it uses it's own money. The LA expects the schools to hand over the money they used to pay to run their own in-house ICT services.

[Ruthierhyme]

Does anyone have a link (or document) to a flow chart detailing the organisational structure of BSF ?

EDIT: sorted .. in the narrowest sense : )

[Grommit]

Ok - so for the school I am at which is expected to have a pupil level of 1050 this would give the very basic managed service costs at

1050 Students X £100 per student = £105,000 per year (approximately)

1 IT Technician + 1 Network Manager + 1 System Manager = £54,000 per year (approximately)

So far this would leave £49,000 per year left for ICT purchases.

What are peoples standard yearly budgets? (I've not had a proper budget in a few years)

These costs still don't included addition costs that may be placed for addition requirements (this information would probably be the most useful as its likely to be the more expensive and best profitability for the preferred bidder).

I also still don't understand so far if this is the case the preferred bidder would make 4 years X £105,000 - £420,000 over the course of the contract and this does not come close to the £1million+ that will be provided at the start?
Where are they making up the rest of their money or is the rest of the £1million+ provided by the Government? Or is all the £1million+ provided by the government (that would be worrying)

This has been discussed before..

Our School now..

1200 Kids

ICT Staff: £65 000

Jobs handled

PC's, Servers, Printers, Vandalism, Projectors, Telephones, AV for lessons, AV Screens, OHP's, Hand Holding for OFSTED and other Lessons, Lesson Covering, SIMS (installation and bug fixing at workstation), Cashless Catering, Photocopiers, off site AV productions, Access Control, CCTV, Library Database, TV's, Plasma's content, COMPLUS Tanoy System, CCTV event capturing, VOIP, Video Confrencing, and legacy equipement (3 year old PC's and Servers) which are still working fine but the BSF said they would not support..

maintainance CCTV: £25 000

Total £80 000 for everything 18 hours a day 7 days a week

BSF Basic Cost: 9 - 5.... 5 days a week... only

Also all faults have to be assessed to see if they are covered and if not a PO has to be issued before any work gets done..

BSF Support Contract Basic cost £120,000.00 = £100 per child

this is a basic cost for only Servers, PC's (under 3 years ) and Printers

Additional work we do that is not under the basic BSF Costings

maintainance CCTV £25 000

Cashless Catering: ?

Library Software: ?

Teacher Hand Holding: ?

Access Control: ?

Specialist Tanoy System: ?

Movement of Equipment: ?

Telephones: ?

Photocopiers:?

Legacy Equiptment:?

AV and Media:?

After Hours: ?

Vandalism: ?

Alrady the costs have doubled and we haven't even started ...

And the BSF pays for the first year and then the School has to pay out of its own budget for the next 4

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/showthread.php?t=8325

[siuko]

Ah yes sorry about that I hadn't noticed that post

The issue with the other post is still the fact that there are no details (and yes I know that each BSF contract will be different depending on the output spec etc).

But some schools HAVE been through bsf and so must have pricing structures in place for many of their extra requirements.

I'd just like an understanding of the difference between bsf costs and charges under their rules and how much it would cost me to purchase equipment, build computers, purchase software etc under my own steam. (Such things as why would bsf purchase new OS software on the new computers when I already have £9000+ worth of WinXP that will be wasted and £9000+ of office software etc)

I'm certain there would be large differences in pricing.

And as many have probably stated elsewhere - it wont stop the bsf steamroller but I will feel better putting my point across knowing ALL the facts not just the vague facts given.

[TechMonkey]

Total £80 000 for everything 18 hours a day 7 days a week

??

You're on an 18x7 contract? How did the school swing that one?