Job Losses in Hackney BSF and RM?

[Grommit]

Was reading that Blog that Grumbledook did a link for and saw a question posted to the Blogger..

 

Jill... I undestand thet the BSF ICT Company will be taking over and controlling the Schools/ Boroughs Network..

 

I understad the Technicians might be TUPED over to the new company to be Toner Changers..

 

But whats going to happen to your Network Manager as he won't have a Network to Manage anymore and I doubt that he will be paid a Network Managers pay to change mice and keyboards.. ?

02 February 2008 07:38

 

 

Jill C said...

You're absolutely right. We have a team of 3 ICT staff, including our network manager. We will be going to 1 plus a technician shared with two other schools, although there may be a slightly higher level of staffing in the first instance. Obviously we're concerned about the drop in staffing levels, but RM say they have to make it work. Basically RM make their vacancy bulletin available from a point to be agreed with the school, and any of the technicians can start applying for posts anywhere. RM say (and I think it's true, not least because of the amount of BSF projects they're involved in) that there are lots of positions available, including international postings. Basically, though, BSF will be removing the strongest technical staff from schools unless schools can fund an additional post from their own budget and find a way to make it satisfying to the post holder. Personally I think this is likely to be detrimental to education in the long term.

 

What this says is that all staff won't be TUPED and that technicians are now at risk as well as the Network Managers...

 

1 school losing 1 NM and 1.5 Technicians ...

Edited February 8, 2008 by ZeroHour

[MK-2]

You're job is safe, honest, we won't let you go...........now are there any buses that go from your house to Dubai? They need a mouse changing

[broc]

You're job is safe, honest, we won't let you go...........now are there any buses that go from your house to Dubai? They need a mouse changing

 

Always assuming the problem was reported first to the helpdesk in Mumbai

[psydii]

Perth actually. No relation to Hove. (south coast joke... sorry)

 

Grommit, the whole team is TUPEd and protected, but there is only 1.5 spaces in the structure within the school.

 

The whole team will be offered alternatives jobs, with no requirement to accept. The offers will be take into account the skill set and pay scale appropriate to individual.

 

This is in line with what EduGeek were told on the summer jolly to RM HQ.

[MK-2]

the whole team is TUPEd and protected

 

The whole team will be offered alternatives jobs, with no requirement to accept.

 

so the whole team are protected, but could then be offered an alternative job somewhere they dont want to work, with no requirement to accept, which is then seen as voluntary redundancy.

 

We were told at our pre-bsf meeting that we would be tuped across but if we didn't agree to the jobs offered we could refuse and that would be seen as us opting out of the whole thing and bye bye job.

so in other words you're not really protected.

[broc]

The concept of 'protection' with respect to TUPE is a myth, designed to let the ex-employer sleep at nights having abdicated all responsibility for the loyal staff they used to employ.

[sahmeepee]

I recently read some guidance on the 2006 TUPE regulations (PDF) (now you know why i didn't post in the hobbies thread ). It's in fairly plain English, considering. The exemptions to do with economic factors are seemingly quite open to abuse by employers, but I'm not sure how it's panned out in court.

 

Also, recent case law is in the favour of the employee (see this blog posting about TUPE). Between the lines there is a hidden warning against taking a promotion from RM (say) if it isn't worth much - you will be signing away any beneficial terms of your original employment.

[CyberNerd]

Tupe doesn't protect against redundancy, all it means is that the new employer must disclose redundancy in the consultation process - the disclosure may not be obvious (hidden in a website saying how many techs they plan to have in each school). As long as (RM) have made this disclosure they are free to use Tupe to transfer employees and then make them redundant.

[Grommit]

The concept of 'protection' with respect to TUPE is a myth, designed to let the ex-employer sleep at nights having abdicated all responsibility for the loyal staff they used to employ.

 

Well i was paranoid about my role as Network Manager.. But now it seems there is going to be a massive cull of Technicians as well..

 

I was speaking to a LEA BSF advisor and he said that the schools because of the Managed services would not need so many technicians on the ground in one site...

[broc]

TUPE has three handy get out clauses for the employer:

 

1) Economic, which means if their business is losing money they can get rid of staff even though they are 'protected' by TUPE as the alternative is they go out of business.

2) Organisational, which means that they can decide to transfer jobs to other parts of the country; staff may be offered the chance to relocate but that is not always possible. Key staff may be offered relocation assistance, others may be offered nothing.

3) Technical, so that an organisation that inherits staff with skills regarded as 'outmoded' can make them redundant. So for example, a managed service provider delivering Unix based thin client solutions may decide they don't need large numbers of technicians & network managers who are Windows trained.

 

As an aside, if you look at what is happening with Single Status/Job evaluation across the UK, some Local Authorities are already threatening to dismiss large numbers of their staff to then re-employ them on inferior terms and conditions as a means of driving through contract changes. If the LAs are prepared to take these steps now they will not be too worried about those staff TUPE'd.....

 

Job security is a myth. Our employment laws make it far easier to get rid of staff than in France or Germany.

[broc]

I was speaking to a LEA BSF advisor and he said that the schools because of the Managed services would not need so many technicians on the ground in one site...

 

Sadly, I have had similar conversations, what is clear is that most of 'the experts' have little or no idea about how things really work in schools. Their view is that many of the issues we deal with day-to-day are simply down to lack of training for the end-users and they will not shift from this opinion. They really believe that one technician on site will be enough, in fact I was told that the school based technicians will be able to take calls from other schools in their spare time.

 

I have invited them to come into school & see for themselves how we spend our time.

 

I wonder why I have had no takers?

[Grommit]

Sadly, I have had similar conversations, what is clear is that most of 'the experts' have little or no idea about how things really work in schools. Their view is that many of the issues we deal with day-to-day are simply down to lack of training for the end-users and they will not shift from this opinion. They really believe that one technician on site will be enough, in fact I was told that the school based technicians will be able to take calls from other schools in their spare time.

 

I have invited them to come into school & see for themselves how we spend our time.

 

I wonder why I have had no takers?

 

Too bloody true....

 

Most of my day is spent repairing battered ICT Rooms...

 

1 Cover lesson in a ICT room causes more damage than a heard of Elephants.. and it takes an hour or 3 to get the room back into order..

 

Plus the Teachers with bad classroom management skills cause us no end of problems

[broc]

Don't worry.... putting ICT rooms back together will be history post BSF.

 

The way it has been explained to me:

 

BSF schools won't have ICT rooms (apart from small specialist suites for media studies, CAD etc). Students will all have individual handheld devices. When they break them the technician will be able to swap the broken one for a spare and send off the old one for repair.

 

Teachers will be expected to phone a helpdesk if they have a problem; the helpdesk will attempt to resolve the problem remotely, talking the teacher through the problem determination steps as necessary. If it cannot be fixed a technician will be scheduled to visit at some point to investigate further.

 

The days of the HT, SMT or even the school cat being able to stop the ICT technician/network manager in the corridor and ask for immediate 'attention' will be history too.

[webman]

I'm looking forward to laughing very hard and saying "We told you so" in 5-10 years' time.

[beeswax]

Teachers will be expected to phone a helpdesk if they have a problem; the helpdesk will attempt to resolve the problem remotely, talking the teacher through the problem determination steps as necessary. If it cannot be fixed a technician will be scheduled to visit at some point to investigate further.

 

The main problem I see here is that the teacher is on the point of delivering a lesson, and s/he isn't going to spend 10-15 minutes of that lesson on the phone to a help desk. Some staff may be snotty to techs, but at least we're on site ready to respond.

[Vegas]

Regarding the help desk call and the next 15 mins trying to get the teacher in question to fix their problem.........how may schools actually have phones in their classrooms?!

I know that when most of our teachers call, they tell us their problem and then hang up, they don't have time to try a fix over the phone, they just expect to see you in their classroom in 2 mins time. If they are expected to hang on the phone with some help desk then surely the students education will suffer which is the reason why we are all employed.

[Geoff]

I expect the unions will go nuts too. Teachers aren't supposed to do admin/support work anymore. That includes doing basic hardware diagnostics over the phone for some help desk in my book.

[broc]

I expect the unions will go nuts too. Teachers aren't supposed to do admin/support work anymore. That includes doing basic hardware diagnostics over the phone for some help desk in my book.

 

I raised this very point with a BSF Consultant and I was told BSF was all about 'remodelling' the secondary education system and staff would have to get used to it!

[GrumbleDook]

From what I hear (from a union man), they have been placated as for a good number of schools it will make little difference to what happens already (their research, not Govt or PfS), but it will be stored up for when they need something to argue about in the future.

 

Hmmm ... politics getting in the way again?

[psydii]

So far (in BSF land) RM have said they intend to keep everybody, though for many they'd prefer to offer alternative, jobs (yes that means loosing TUPE protection).

 

Now given that is what they are publicly saying, to violate that will cause a 'whole heap of trouble' which is something they'd be keen to avoid.

 

BSF ITCD responses that propose teachers have to phone a central helpdesk, also propose a phone in every classroom. Now what ever you may think of RM, their Solution Architects are pretty switched on people and they have thought of many of the issues that you will have, and if they haven't they will incorporate them into the proposal. A central tenet of BSF is Partnership... if you spot something they haven't it is in everybody's interest to raise it and get it sorted.

 

If a bidder can't operate in that way, you don't want them as your partner for the next 20 years.

[MK-2]

BSF ITCD responses that propose teachers have to phone a central helpdesk, also propose a phone in every classroom. Now what ever you may think of RM, their Solution Architects are pretty switched on people and they have thought of many of the issues that you will have, and if they haven't they will incorporate them into the proposal.

 

And have they thought of the fact that a class full of screaming kids + teacher trying to explain a problem in non-technical terms + person on other end of helpdesk doesn't = a pretty switched on idea.

remember not every school is full of little darlings who will sit in silence while you ring a technical support line. coupled with the fact that if teachers are telling kids that phones are banned in class, then proceed to spend 10mins on the phone in lesson (regardless what for), it will be kids logic that 'you are allowed to use a phone, so am i.'

 

if you spot something they haven't it is in everybody's interest to raise it and get it sorted.

 

like the whole bsf ict managed services idea?

Edited February 7, 2008 by MK-2

[broc]

One of the reasons I wanted to get some of these 'experts' into my school was to take them along to a couple of classroom call-outs where they would experience first-hand what happens at the start of a lesson when the technology fails.

 

I suspect nobody has done a TCO analysis of reducing onsite school technical support. If you have to use more highly paid teachers to do initial problem determination rather than technicians the cost to the school must be higher in the long run.

[psydii]

Broc, I suspect this is exactly the sort of analysis that has been done, and I'm sure it shows that outsourced centrally managed systems, with limited local support provide the lowest TCO and support the highest attainment for learners.

 

MK-2 in your scenario it **should** play out something like this:

 

Teacher picks up phone - "My Whiteboard's FUCT"

Class - **crash** Bang **riot*

Teacher - "Need it fixed now!"

Operator - "OK no problem, John will be there shortly"

**click**

Teacher returns attention to class

Operator contacts John who is dispatched with the correct spare pen/projector and laptop and leads. Possible becuase it is a managed service keeping track of who and what is where, the helpdesk know from the number of the caller where they were and what kit they had in the room.

15 minutes later - problem is resolved.

 

 

Do we really believe that the ICT partners will be able to maintain that level of understanding of each schools systems? If not, why not? We're getting pretty reasonable at that level of service round here - provided we are not already engaged on an issue...

Edited February 7, 2008 by psydii

[broc]

psydii

 

TCO means including the teachers time too......

 

How much teaching time will be lost dealing with the helpdesk as they talk them through a screen driven PD process? Will the teacher simply call for a classroom assistant to help instead? These 'costs' may not show up on the managed service bottom line but they are real costs to the school.

 

Your scenario described to MK-2 is fine, until there are 3-4 or more similar urgent requests queued for the only technician on site. Even 15 minutes downtime is 25% lesson wasted.......

 

I once worked in a commercial environment where they decided to switch from centralised printing to distributed to save print operator costs. They saved the print operator costs, but it cost 3-4 times more for increased network support staff, and the end users (many of whom were highly paid professionals) had to waste time sorting out their own printout from other people.

 

That is why TCO is so important.

Edited February 7, 2008 by broc

[MK-2]

My main problem with how that scenario plays out (regardless of if it works like that 100%) is that whoever is situated in the school doesn't really need much IT know how as that can be passed on from the call centre.

 

Right now most of us are proactive rather than reactive. We find the problems before they affect others. With that scenario we would be sat there waiting for a phone call, so only reacting to new problems.

 

On a sidenote, how much longer would it take for a teacher to call up a helpdesk, get the problem logged, then for that helpdesk to pass on the problem to the technician on site, who may not be in the office. so he has to drop everything, go to his office, pick up the kit he is instructed to, then go fix it.

Why is the sudden need for middle men? There is an IT suite directly opposite our office. It takes the teacher less than 10 seconds to report a problem. The new way it can take 5-15mins for a resolution. How is this increasing technical support in schools?