Just found this article on the Lancashire Telegraph website about how schools in Blackburn and Bolton have not been able to access ICT services for a few months, in one case since September.
Looks like Northgate have got a question to answer when they are asked why this has happened and what is happening to the £41.3 million that they got for the ICT contract.
Full article here Blackburn with Darwen schools hit by IT problems
Wow! BSF thread and everyone's looking but nobody's talking. What are the chances of that?
Let's not even mention what happened in Burnley either eh?
Burnley... I was there man. It was like 'Nam... lost a lot of good people...
It looks like Blackburn is having a similar experience to Leicester.
next in line to get screwed is luton, millions piled in and a lot of schools lost out! Most have had IT ripped out and half replaced, I even know of 1 school that resorted to donations of equipment from parents to get some form of ICT going!
What??? Birmingnam has been hit by ICT problems????Originally Posted by GeneralDreedle
butuz
No - he means N(ottingh)am - silly boy!
Did anyone visit the Northgate Stand @ BETT?
It was banged out with Nortgate staff yesterday (Weds) but I made a point of checking them out several times during the day and it never changed.... Looked like leper colony
tech_guy (13th January 2011)
The comments in that article are shockingly bad. Thinking that £1.7m per school for full ICT provision is a lot. We're spending £10k just to wire up a new reception and 3 classrooms here. Not including the equipment! I wonder if people will ever realise that a school network is not simply made up of cheap computers and that's all.
I have just pointed this out to my boss!
I get ashamed when I have to take any part of our system down for updates!
How can the schools manage?
Alan
There is an awful lot of money 'top-sliced' from the BSF ICT funding, I believe at my wife's school they lost around 35%. Another trick is to spend some capital on 5-year warranties for equipment, which of course does not cover damage or wear & tear.... plus ICT funding is used for copiers, projectors, IWB, internal CCTV, cashless catering.... migration of data, packaging software applications etc etc
Last edited by broc; 13th January 2011 at 07:48 PM.
Broc, ICT Managed services cover all aspects of ICT Services, not just educational technology. Can't comment about top slicing though, and not even sure what is meant by that in this context.
In case that sounded overly pro BSF style Managed Services: I actually avoided the edugeek stand at BETT this year because I didn't want to experience the effect talking about BSF has on my inner calm.
What I mean by top slicing..... The BSF program gave each LA £1450 per student to be spent on ICT..... but the school gets to see < £1000 per student spent on equipment such as LAN/WAN, Servers, PCs, laptops, projectors, PA systems, internal CCTV, telephony, cashless catering,software licences, warranties & installation fees etc. The rest (top slice) is spent by the LA on consultancy fees, legal fees, design costs, LA costs, LEP fees, BSF project team costs & expenses etc. Basically not all the BSF ICT funding finds its way into the school.
This is not intended as a criticism of any LA nor the amount of money that is spent; there are overheads associated with the LA purchasing a managed service solution for its schools and they have to be paid for but these costs do come out of school BSF ICT funding. The same goes for building costs.
Last edited by broc; 18th January 2011 at 11:22 PM.
In that case our experiences differ. The governors at my last place would never have taken that lying down. The ICT spend was ring-fenced, not sure whether that was the LA/Consultants/P4S or Governor influence that won us that.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
Reply With Quote