GrumbleDook Posted August 16, 2007 Posted August 16, 2007 Schools where the politics and in-house power struggles dictate what goes on and not the needs of the users. Where are the guarantees that IT managed services will be any better? This boils down to how the SLA is set up between the LEP, the school and the specific company. Companies that fail to meet the required standards or give a service that leads to a drop in performance of the schools will be financially penalised ... and it could be quite heavily.
Guest Guest Posted August 16, 2007 Posted August 16, 2007 This boils down to how the SLA is set up between the LEP, the school and the specific company. Companies that fail to meet the required standards or give a service that leads to a drop in performance of the schools will be financially penalised ... and it could be quite heavily. You've just highlighted the main problem there. We all know too well that the Gov/RBCs/LEAs cant seem to do this right, Cachepilot and SIMS being great examples. I assume they both have SLAs signed, so why in the SLA does it not state "must be fit for purpose"? If it did say "must be fit for purpose" then why is it that capita are in the firm belief that all users should have power user, or better still, admin rights? Theres so many reasons why cachepilot is useless i cant ven be bothered listing them as it really would take all day. But maybe in the SLA it does say "must be fit for purpose", and the gov/rbcs/leas arnt doing anything about it. Either way...
kestrel1 Posted August 16, 2007 Posted August 16, 2007 Who loves our government???? What sort of fools work in the government?? This country has gone to the dogs. I would get out if I could, but I love the weather.
Grommit Posted August 16, 2007 Posted August 16, 2007 Schools where the politics and in-house power struggles dictate what goes on and not the needs of the users. Where are the guarantees that IT managed services will be any better? This boils down to how the SLA is set up between the LEP, the school and the specific company. Companies that fail to meet the required standards or give a service that leads to a drop in performance of the schools will be financially penalised ... and it could be quite heavily. But by that time all the in-house Technicans have gone to the new company or retrenched.. and the Network Manager is so other lower role, sidelined or retrenched.. So it is a case of putting all you eggs in one basket and hoping for the best as there is no IT Manager to assist the School with it's problems and it will be up to the Teaching Staff or Business Manager to deal with these issues.. and hopefully the Business Manager has the ICT Knowledge to know what he requires.. or to spot if they are speaking rubbish And by God do not get into a dispute with your Managed Service Company because they like lots of other companies do.. might withhold service untill they are paid.. yes yes Tony I know there are checks and balances.. but the bottom line is on Grass roots level that most companies play the blame game... I deal with it every day.. they all try to squirm out of responsibility and blame it on the kids..... and it's lots of companies that do this when it is plainly in their scope of works.... Now I as an ICT Manager stand my ground because I know what is right .. whats a Business Manager going to do ? "Its the Flux Capacitor on the Server Mr Business Manager"... "It's worn out and its not under warrenty"... "It's gonna cost £500 to replace"... In Fact I saw RM once replace a 80GB HDD into a server and they charged the school £600 Then me as a feeder school Network Manager saw this and spoke to the Head that this was out of order and excessive.... we confronted RM who dropped the price to £300.. Now if I as a feeder school Network Manager was not there then they would have paid up not knowing that it was wrong..
CyberNerd Posted August 16, 2007 Posted August 16, 2007 What an amusing layer of bureaucracy this could create if a school needs to re- employ technical people to diagnose and report breeches in (complex) SLA's to recover it's investment.
webman Posted August 16, 2007 Posted August 16, 2007 We'd obviously charge the going (double) rate 8)
Pottsey Posted August 17, 2007 Author Posted August 17, 2007 Well everything rolled back and I have a working system ready for September, well apart from the new network points, which don’t work. 3 days and not managed to talk to the guy who did the system quote who is meant to be sorting out this mess and his boss is on holiday. Ringing up or leavening messages is a waste of time, he is always on the phone so cannot speak to me. Not much to do but wait for his boss to get back off holiday.
Grommit Posted August 17, 2007 Posted August 17, 2007 Well everything rolled back and I have a working system ready for September, well apart from the new network points, which don’t work. 3 days and not managed to talk to the guy who did the system quote who is meant to be sorting out this mess and his boss is on holiday. Ringing up or leavening messages is a waste of time, he is always on the phone so cannot speak to me. Not much to do but wait for his boss to get back off holiday. He seems to be avoiding you... Seems you have a Communication Problem or you do not have enough "clout" to make this peon jump..
Grommit Posted August 17, 2007 Posted August 17, 2007 Some people on this site look at the BSF in a cold clinical light and think that it will help the development of ICT for the Children and have no real concern of the affect it will have on ICT Managers and Senior IT support staff..... .. this is because they are in high curricular positions and are not affected by the BSF steamroller… But…. The bottom line is we Network Managers have to look to our future and under the BSF it isn't very good, in fact we are obsolete...... Yes... Every Child Matters… but so do we, our life and our family's security.. if we can ‘t pay the mortgage, can’t support and feed our own kids because we are unemployed and over 35 and unemployable what then ?!?….. Do we sacrifice our careers like dumb martyrs and happily assist the BSF Consultants in taking our livelihood away? Yes all this Millions of Pounds being pumped into the schools ICT is fantastic.. but what good is it to us if we are on the dole? You hear of hundreds of IT Staff/Managers that are unemployable because they are in the upper 30's and beyond... plus all of our skills are in the Education Sector We have to put ourselves first.. and not walk ourselves out of a job... http://management.silicon.com/careers/0,39024671,39120958,00.htm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2417325.stm http://psyche.uthct.edu/nes/wwwboard/messages/120.html http://www.efa.org.uk/age/business.asp http://www.materialstoday.com/pdfs/june_2006/mt0906editorial.pdf
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