Govt to claw back 25% of 2010 - 11 Harnessing Technology Grants

[tech_guy]

Just had a heads-up that we're going to get jumped over the HT grant - the Govt via the LAs will be reclaiming 25% of the 2010 - 11 grants.....

What the hell are places going to do who have spent it already?!?!?!

[gl3nnym]

This year our budget is £10k and the toner alone costs £15k. Work that one out! My old school was £100k.

[TechSupp]

Should not have spent it yet as does it not get allocated untill August, its one of these ones that don't follow the financial year or at least thats what ours does anyway.

[rayfleming]

I wrote a quick summary last night, incuding links to all of the sources for info - I was trying to pull the key facts together, as the info appeared to be a mix of different information in different places.

Harnessing Technology Grant

[rayfleming]

Has anybody yet actually had the message through their head that they will be taking some of their budget away because of Friday's cut in the Harnessing Technology Grant?

It will be interesting to see which Local Authorities are acting quickly on communicating this, and how they're applying it (ie how much of the pain is shared, and how much is directly handed on to schools)

[Mr.Ben]

Nope, not yet, but I have told the bursar that this is happening. If anything the communication flow is from the bottom to the top!

[Mr.Ben]

Ray, I've read through your '10' money saving tips and have noticed that you quote £14 per machine for a schools agreement.#

Can you tell me what exactly this is for, and how do I get that pricing! Desktop packs cost around £25 for me on a schools agreement.

Cheers, Ben

[tmcd35]

Got this news yesterday. Spent an hour today going through my 5-year budget plan looking for possible spending cuts. Not only is HT being taken back this year (our LA are covering this for us I believe) but the amount we get per child is going down and the ICT portion of DFC also looks set to decrease. Bleek time ahead.

I'm about to go and break the news to our head of ICT who want nice shiny brand new computers in his ICT suites...

EDIT: oh, and I've spent the HT money for this year already. Part of it is sitting in my server room, it'd be a cold day in hell before they take my new file server away from me

[jamesreedersmith]

If i read that correctly you are still getting the HT for this year but it is reduced is that correct?

[rayfleming]

In response to Mr.Ben's question, at #7
I'd pulled out the Office pricing only to make a direct comparison, not the whole desktop pack. At the time I'd called Pugh, and they quoted me the typical School Agreement price. I'm not sure what the current pricing is - I wrote the blog post in Jan, and it may have changed a little - I suspect it's probably gone up by one or two pounds since then, with the introduction of Office 2010.
(For those who're bemused, it's this blog post that Mr.Ben's referring to.

[tmcd35]

If i read that correctly you are still getting the HT for this year but it is reduced is that correct?

Sorry, yeah - my bad. I was refering to the 25% cut this year. Still 25% or 100% makes no odds now - I've spent it

[Mr.Ben]

Thanks for clearing that up Ray! Some nice tips there that I've forwarded to our SMT to see if they will help me to drive our costs down!

[tech_guy]

Has anybody yet actually had the message through their head that they will be taking some of their budget away because of Friday's cut in the Harnessing Technology Grant?

It will be interesting to see which Local Authorities are acting quickly on communicating this, and how they're applying it (ie how much of the pain is shared, and how much is directly handed on to schools)

I'm a staff governor and we've been told by the head honcho at the LA that this is happening.

[Sylv3r]

We get our full allocation at the start of the financial year for Harnessing Technology from the LA - this pays for our Broadband connection which has been paid for.

I would doubt the LA will claw the money back from us now, but they will probably take the money out before we receive our budget next year - on the quiet.

[GrumbleDook]

You get a variety of funds throughout the year and it may be that the claw back is in the form of other funds getting slashed instead.