Oi Oi.. Whats going on here then ?!?! PfS and BSF ?

[torledo]

To broc and bossman...

 

In another bsf thread I mentioned that i felt there was still a need for an ICT department of some sort within schools - to deal with the day-to-day and face to face on-site support.

 

I know across the country NM salaries differ but in some authorities outside of the south-east a large proportion of NM's are on 30K+ a year even though the schools they work in can take of advantage of a number of the managed services I mentioned.

 

I don't think it's wrong to be against how outsourcing IT in education has been implemented - but outsourcing has been happening for years in the large authorities - and the noises against have gradually quietened down. Becuase despite the odd tearing your hair out moment it has largely been a success in places like Rochdale and Birmingham. The large authorities have taken control of the procuring of leased lines, WAN access, web filtering, www hosting, firewallls - and this has and continues to extend.

Surely have these centrally hosted services not taken control away from schools ?

 

I support the BSF IT outsourcing plans with a huge caveat....that schools and providers understand the SLA's and that a A-grade supplier is used.

A supplier who take advantage of econmies of scale - for example if Sun won a contract for your authority hardware wise would that be a bad thing ? Sun Intel and Opteron servers in every air-conditioned, fully facilited server room, sun storage and sun management software (all of which is good) and i don't work for SUN btw - in other areas schools could benefit from standardisation of hardware and software used. Ofcourse this sounds like a one size fits all approach and does it limit choice and flexibility ? Maybe, but then it's up to the SP to make sure it all works and that they can respond to issues.

 

I don't see schools complaining about Select licensing agreements that allow them to take advantage of preferential licensing and pricing on Microsoft Products - even though this tends to have been negotiated, managed and administered by the local authority because they take advantages of economies of scale. Or other authority wide procurements that have given schools incredible value for money. Sometimes it's advantageous not to go your own way in certain areas and take advantage of what authorities and service providers can offer.

 

As I said there's plenty of examples where these projects have hindered progress so it's not all a bed of roses. I find it's important to be open minded to the benefits and have your eyes wide open as to the perils.

 

Apologies if i've appeared disloyal - but i think the changes are inevitable.

[broc]

@torledo

 

I am not anti-outsourcing in principle; it is the way that the decision has been arrived at I object to.

 

If schools had been invited to give their views about managed ICT services before the decision was made......

 

If schools had the true cost structure for the service in front of them before they were forced to sign up......

 

If ongoing funding was assured, for the duration of the service contract......

 

If support levels were guaranteed to meet or exceed current levels enjoyed by schools.......

 

If schools were guaranteed 'best value' for equipment procurement.....

 

I could go on, but I won't.

 

For years schools have had to put up with mediocre levels of service from their LAs (some would argue they still do). Schools who wanted to be at the sharp edge of technology invested their money in equipment, materials, and skilled staff to move forward at a pace that suited them, rather than be held back by their LAs. BSF managed services is seen to be an attempt to return to the old days, where schools are told what they will get. The only difference now is they are being told by organisations driven largely by the need to pay dividends to their shareholders.

 

The whole program is a sham. The Government doesn't have the money to pay for the years of neglect in our school buildings, so it has gone down the PFI route. Managed ICT is a 'sweetener' to attract bidders, that's all.

 

Show me the business case which demonstrates that schools will get a better, more affordable, sustainable ICT service as a result of BSF?

[daveyboy]

I wonder - if the powers that be decided on a 'standard' whitelist / blacklist for every school that took the flexibility away............

[torledo]

@torledo

 

I am not anti-outsourcing in principle; it is the way that the decision has been arrived at I object to.

 

If schools had been invited to give their views about managed ICT services before the decision was made......

 

If schools had the true cost structure for the service in front of them before they were forced to sign up......

 

If ongoing funding was assured, for the duration of the service contract......

 

If support levels were guaranteed to meet or exceed current levels enjoyed by schools.......

 

If schools were guaranteed 'best value' for equipment procurement.....

 

I could go on, but I won't.

 

For years schools have had to put up with mediocre levels of service from their LAs (some would argue they still do). Schools who wanted to be at the sharp edge of technology invested their money in equipment, materials, and skilled staff to move forward at a pace that suited them, rather than be held back by their LAs. BSF managed services is seen to be an attempt to return to the old days, where schools are told what they will get. The only difference now is they are being told by organisations driven largely by the need to pay dividends to their shareholders.

 

The whole program is a sham. The Government doesn't have the money to pay for the years of neglect in our school buildings, so it has gone down the PFI route. Managed ICT is a 'sweetener' to attract bidders, that's all.

 

Show me the business case which demonstrates that schools will get a better, more affordable, sustainable ICT service as a result of BSF?

 

Sure, LA's could do better when it comes to customer service and really understanding the needs of schools.

 

But in some areas it IS the authorities who are driving change and at the forefront of technology even though some initiatives have never been used to the level that was anticipated.

 

How could schools have video conferencing and future ip telephony applications with other schools and locations in the authority without the LA's ICT team investing in authority wide infrastrucutre and centrally hosted services ? using their internet connection ? (not ideal is it).

Sure schools could go to a third-party and work together to build those links but it would cost them and they'd really be at the mercy of the 3rd party. No difference there then

 

Could these schools who want to move at their own pace negotitate significant discounts in areas such as software licensing, leased line procurement (bonded adsl is fine for some schools but sometimes you need that deidcated upstream bandwidth) when dealing with suppliers in isolation ? Sure they can get good value - but the authorities can provide outstanding value (a lot of the time at NO charge to schools). And how much time have we already freed up for overworked NM's with them not even having to think about providing these services for their schools.

How about content delivery networks area wide - sure the schools could work togetethe to do it outside of the LA but again cost, planning, time involved should not be underestimated. Sure schools historically have been great in working in isolation but it is up to the LA's to develop these hosted and wide area communication services.

[broc]

Sure, LA's could do better when it comes to customer service and really understanding the needs of schools.

 

But in some areas it IS the authorities who are driving change and at the forefront of technology even though some initiatives have never been used to the level that was anticipated.

 

How could schools have video conferencing and future ip telephony applications with other schools and locations in the authority without the LA's ICT team investing in authority wide infrastrucutre and centrally hosted services ? using their internet connection ? (not ideal is it).

Sure schools could go to a third-party and work together to build those links but it would cost them and they'd really be at the mercy of the 3rd party. No difference there then

 

Could these schools who want to move at their own pace negotitate significant discounts in areas such as software licensing, leased line procurement (bonded adsl is fine for some schools but sometimes you need that deidcated upstream bandwidth) when dealing with suppliers in isolation ? Sure they can get good value - but the authorities can provide outstanding value (a lot of the time at NO charge to schools). And how much time have we already freed up for overworked NM's with them not even having to think about providing these services for their schools.

How about content delivery networks area wide - sure the schools could work togetethe to do it outside of the LA but again cost, planning, time involved should not be underestimated. Sure schools historically have been great in working in isolation but it is up to the LA's to develop these hosted and wide area communication services.

 

If as you suggest the LAs are doing such a fine job, why is it then that the Government through Partnership for Schools and BSF is so hell-bent upon abandoning all of this, handing control of schools to the LEP which has a majority stake in the hands of PLCs with shareholders?

[Butuz]

Sure, LA's could do better when it comes to customer service and really understanding the needs of schools.

 

But in some areas it IS the authorities who are driving change and at the forefront of technology even though some initiatives have never been used to the level that was anticipated.

 

How could schools have video conferencing and future ip telephony applications with other schools and locations in the authority without the LA's ICT team investing in authority wide infrastrucutre and centrally hosted services ? using their internet connection ? (not ideal is it).

Sure schools could go to a third-party and work together to build those links but it would cost them and they'd really be at the mercy of the 3rd party. No difference there then

 

Could these schools who want to move at their own pace negotitate significant discounts in areas such as software licensing, leased line procurement (bonded adsl is fine for some schools but sometimes you need that deidcated upstream bandwidth) when dealing with suppliers in isolation ? Sure they can get good value - but the authorities can provide outstanding value (a lot of the time at NO charge to schools). And how much time have we already freed up for overworked NM's with them not even having to think about providing these services for their schools.

How about content delivery networks area wide - sure the schools could work togetethe to do it outside of the LA but again cost, planning, time involved should not be underestimated. Sure schools historically have been great in working in isolation but it is up to the LA's to develop these hosted and wide area communication services.

 

Problem is mate - the scenarios you are quoting appear to be the "ultimate LEA", the LEA that actually is at the forefront of educational ICT, driving change, and providing excellent support. These "ideal" LEA's are few and far between, I bet country wide you could count them on one hand. The rest of the LEA's tend to offer mediocre to poor ICT support, and very little in the way of innovation.

 

I am watching this thread, and indeed BSF with great interest as it has not yet come to Wales.

 

Andrew

[torledo]

Sure, LA's could do better when it comes to customer service and really understanding the needs of schools.

 

But in some areas it IS the authorities who are driving change and at the forefront of technology even though some initiatives have never been used to the level that was anticipated.

 

How could schools have video conferencing and future ip telephony applications with other schools and locations in the authority without the LA's ICT team investing in authority wide infrastrucutre and centrally hosted services ? using their internet connection ? (not ideal is it).

Sure schools could go to a third-party and work together to build those links but it would cost them and they'd really be at the mercy of the 3rd party. No difference there then

 

Could these schools who want to move at their own pace negotitate significant discounts in areas such as software licensing, leased line procurement (bonded adsl is fine for some schools but sometimes you need that deidcated upstream bandwidth) when dealing with suppliers in isolation ? Sure they can get good value - but the authorities can provide outstanding value (a lot of the time at NO charge to schools). And how much time have we already freed up for overworked NM's with them not even having to think about providing these services for their schools.

How about content delivery networks area wide - sure the schools could work togetethe to do it outside of the LA but again cost, planning, time involved should not be underestimated. Sure schools historically have been great in working in isolation but it is up to the LA's to develop these hosted and wide area communication services.

 

If as you suggest the LAs are doing such a fine job, why is it then that the Government through Partnership for Schools and BSF is so hell-bent upon abandoning all of this, handing control of schools to the LEP which has a majority stake in the hands of PLCs with shareholders?

 

Well New Labour loves PPI and I suppose these 'partnerships' is just another thinly veiled PPI initiative. It's one of Browns pet projects. Master plan to sell off the provision of most aspects of our public services to private enteprise in the name of employment and growth, they've done the same with the Railways and the NHS (the nhs and railways are the worst examples of how this approach sucks) and now it's extending into education.

 

Just as the powers that be have decided the nhs can be more 'efficient' in it's cleaning operations by 'outsourcing' to private companies, so the LA's and schools themselves are not, according to the management consultants, the right people to be entrusted with ICT provision. Now as far as some LA's and schools are concerned that is probably a true reflection particularly with the levels of ICT investment we are talking about going forward. After all there is a skill to procuring IT and negotiating with suppliers and getting best value, but there are LA's across the country that provide a good service in the key areas I mentioned. The whole experience is very variable.

[Pottsey]

“How could schools have video conferencing and future ip telephony applications with other schools and locations in the authority without the LA's ICT team investing in authority wide infrastrucutre and centrally”

That’s part of the problem the LA's ICT team dont ask schools what they need they guess based on what sounds good. Eevery school I have been to doesn’t want or need video conferencing and loads of other stuff that’s good for businesses but not needed for schools. But they are forced to pay for it. Does anyone actually use video conferencing and if you have was it a one off event?

 

Just look at broadband you get a slow 2 or if your lucky 4meg download speed yet pay something crazy like 1000% more then a home 20meg connection. Yet 90% of us would be better off with a 20 or 50meg download speed and not haveing all the unused extras.

 

Just because something is at the forefront of technology doesn’t mean it belongs in a school. Technology should move forward but we shouldn’t be implanting Technology just because its at the forefront of Technology.

[beeswax]

Well New Labour loves PPI and I suppose these 'partnerships' is just another thinly veiled PPI initiative. It's one of Browns pet projects. Master plan to sell off the provision of most aspects of our public services to private enteprise in the name of employment and growth, they've done the same with the Railways and the NHS (the nhs and railways are the worst examples of how this approach sucks) and now it's extending into education.

 

Have to correct you there, the last thing the Tories did under John Major was to privatise the railways. Labour are picking up the pieces from that debacle, which doesn't, in my eyes, excuse then from the way they are going about financing BSF and the NHS.

[torledo]

Sure, LA's could do better when it comes to customer service and really understanding the needs of schools.

 

But in some areas it IS the authorities who are driving change and at the forefront of technology even though some initiatives have never been used to the level that was anticipated.

 

How could schools have video conferencing and future ip telephony applications with other schools and locations in the authority without the LA's ICT team investing in authority wide infrastrucutre and centrally hosted services ? using their internet connection ? (not ideal is it).

Sure schools could go to a third-party and work together to build those links but it would cost them and they'd really be at the mercy of the 3rd party. No difference there then

 

Could these schools who want to move at their own pace negotitate significant discounts in areas such as software licensing, leased line procurement (bonded adsl is fine for some schools but sometimes you need that deidcated upstream bandwidth) when dealing with suppliers in isolation ? Sure they can get good value - but the authorities can provide outstanding value (a lot of the time at NO charge to schools). And how much time have we already freed up for overworked NM's with them not even having to think about providing these services for their schools.

How about content delivery networks area wide - sure the schools could work togetethe to do it outside of the LA but again cost, planning, time involved should not be underestimated. Sure schools historically have been great in working in isolation but it is up to the LA's to develop these hosted and wide area communication services.

 

Problem is mate - the scenarios you are quoting appear to be the "ultimate LEA", the LEA that actually is at the forefront of educational ICT, driving change, and providing excellent support. These "ideal" LEA's are few and far between, I bet country wide you could count them on one hand. The rest of the LEA's tend to offer mediocre to poor ICT support, and very little in the way of innovation.

 

I am watching this thread, and indeed BSF with great interest as it has not yet come to Wales.

 

Andrew

 

I think even the LA's I'm talking about provide poor ICT support. Simply because they aren't staffed or have a sufficent online support presence to deal with the level of support requests. But where they are reasonably good is rolling out these solutions that I've mentioned.

 

Now at the moment it seems to work like this.

 

LA's provide the wide area networking and certain key hosted services.

 

Schools take responsibilty for most things inside the WAN demarc. The LA might have a server that they remotely manage (i.e local caching server)

or router with IP ACL's enforced. But other than that the schools are responsible for anything inside the LAN - are autonomous as to what equipment they use and are entitled to take advantage of the LA economies of scale (i.e software auditing tools, select licensing, MLE's etc.)

Ofcourse LA's will try and guide them to use certain suppliers and to use their procurement processes - but that's not very restrictive at present.

 

Now even under BSF I imagine most LA's will continue to manage the MAN/WAN and provide these services to schools particularly if they've invested in IP/MPLS - but the BSF ICT service providers will encroach into the NM's domain be reponsible for inside of the demarc.

 

This raises some serious questions;

 

Do the LA's continue to provide these hosted solutions ( firewall, internet acces, dns etc.) ?

 

If so, do the BSF service providers have to liasie with the LA to resolve issues that occur outside of the school LAN ?

 

If the BSF service provider wants to take reposnsibility for provision of these hosted services how does each school access them ? Will the BSF servers and backend databases ve colocated in the LA's data centers ? Do BSF SP provide seperate leased line for shcools to access the new hosted services? If so what happens to the existing LA links.

 

I think we'll see the BSF sp and the LA working very closely together with the BSF provider utilising the autority wide infrastructure to provide newer services. But with the authority's ICT team absolved of providing the level of support currently required of them.

 

Much better for the BSF provider to handle all aspets from Core to Edge

but that is never going to happen.

[torledo]

Well New Labour loves PPI and I suppose these 'partnerships' is just another thinly veiled PPI initiative. It's one of Browns pet projects. Master plan to sell off the provision of most aspects of our public services to private enteprise in the name of employment and growth, they've done the same with the Railways and the NHS (the nhs and railways are the worst examples of how this approach sucks) and now it's extending into education.

 

Have to correct you there, the last thing the Tories did under John Major was to privatise the railways. Labour are picking up the pieces from that debacle, which doesn't, in my eyes, excuse then from the way they are going about financing BSF and the NHS.

 

PPI is an extension of privatisation. And rather than picking up the pieces from the error of privatisation they've actually taking PPI involvement in Railways and rail infrastructure to unprecedented levels in the last 10 years.

[Grommit]

 

 

To calculate correctly 'in-house' vs 'outsourced' costs in a bsf environment you'd need to calculate the costs of IT 'inhouse' across all schools, primaries, clc's etc.

within the autohority. Plus you've got a centralised IT policy with authority wide SLA's and consistent standards which just don't exist at the moment.

.

 

My Calculations is on what the site pays now for the in-house ICT Team and what the BSF Rates are for a Basic Managed Servies... and it's nearly double for less work.

 

 

I think you need a stripped down in-house school ICT department - but they should be managed by the service provider - whether that be transferred over into the employment of the consortium or not. And do away with expensive school network managers all together. It's what corporations have been doing with very mixed success for several years.

 

Why in God's name would I want to do that.. what you propose is me losing my job....

 

And for your information a lot of companies are taking their ICT Support back in-house after the disasters of outsourcing..

 

I wanna get angry with you with your stupid statement "expensive school network managers".. but I am a professional so I wont

 

Are you a Troll ?

[Grommit]

I support the BSF IT outsourcing plans with a huge caveat....that schools and providers understand the SLA's and that a A-grade supplier is used.

A supplier who take advantage of econmies of scale - for example if Sun won a contract for your authority hardware wise would that be a bad thing ? Sun Intel and Opteron servers in every air-conditioned, fully facilited server room, sun storage and sun management software

 

ARE YOU NUTS!!!!!!

 

We know for a fact that is doesn't work like that and it has been proved wiith the CFP Rollout...

 

All you get is being forced to buy from the preferred bidder at inflated prices and you can't buy from anyone else..

[beeswax]

Can I point Torledo to this page the third post down from me.

[broc]

re discussions about LA being reasonably good at rolling out solutions; let me give you a few examples where the LA works really well:

 

a) Turning up unannounced during a normal school day to upgrade SIMS.net, so we have to kick-off all our SIMS users, including e-registration because they don't work outside of their core time.

 

b) Causing our broadband link to go down because their backup generators had no fuel to power microwave towers during planned maintenance by the electric supply company

 

c) Deploying an authority wide 'state of the art' videoconferencing system that nobody wanted and nobody uses now the novelty has worn off

 

d) Deploying an authority wide 'learning gateway' without consultation with the schools to see what they might like? Not to mention asking pilot schools to contribute financially to be part of the pilot!

 

e) Delivering a network hardware maintenance agreement that fails to mention when a switch dies & they say they cannot repair it we have to buy a new one?

 

f) Offering a purchasing agreement that ensures we pay more for PCs, laptops, consumables than we can buy on the open market, often from the same suppliers the LA uses?

 

People wonder why schools want to look after as much as possible themselves? It's not because Network Managers are on an ego-trip, or are behaving like control-freaks, it's because they want to deliver the best service they can for their schools.

 

Of course when you discuss examples like these with Partnership for Schools 'consultants' all you get is a pitying look and then you are told "there, there, it will all be better with a managed service & anyway you won't need to worry because you probably won't have a job & even if you do, things like these won't be your concern anyway......"

[torledo]

 

 

To calculate correctly 'in-house' vs 'outsourced' costs in a bsf environment you'd need to calculate the costs of IT 'inhouse' across all schools, primaries, clc's etc.

within the autohority. Plus you've got a centralised IT policy with authority wide SLA's and consistent standards which just don't exist at the moment.

.

 

My Calculations is on what the site pays now for the in-house ICT Team and what the BSF Rates are for a Basic Managed Servies... and it's nearly double for less work.

 

 

I think you need a stripped down in-house school ICT department - but they should be managed by the service provider - whether that be transferred over into the employment of the consortium or not. And do away with expensive school network managers all together. It's what corporations have been doing with very mixed success for several years.

 

Why in God's name would I want to do that.. what you propose is me losing my job....

 

And for your information a lot of companies are taking their ICT Support back in-house after the disasters of outsourcing..

 

I wanna get angry with you with your stupid statement "expensive school network managers".. but I am a professional so I wont

 

Are you a Troll ?

 

My quote about 'expensive network managers' is from past experience where I have dealt with a number of network managers on between 28-32K a year who don't have to worry about providing dns, firewalls and a whole host of other solutions (because they are provided by the local authority) and that traditionaly to be implemented in-house in corporate IT where job security is more of an issue and considerably increased pressure exist. A lot of the network managers jobs as a result seem primarily to involve MIS management and devising a kix or vbscript for every task - which ofcourse are important in their own way.

 

But i do accept that there are a lot of network managers whose tasks extend considerably beyond this and those NM's are charged with implementing all the solutions i've listed and in addition they are not afforded the luxury of such competitive salaries, i can only talk about my own experiences.

 

As for you getting angry. There's plenty of reason for you to be angry about as I'm questioning your role and the role of others under BSF

But surely that has to be done and is being done - your roles are bound to change under bsf, and it seems a lot of managers like yourselves want to preserve the status quo as far as IT is concerned (and you have backed that up with solid arguments and historical results from outsourcing) in which case if you keep job, responsibilities and salary remain unchanged what is the point of a managed IT service at all. It's unlikely the powers that decide this are going to agree to what you want to see or are even likely to compromise a great deal.

 

There's a lot of comments that I see that make me angry but i don't go round calling people a troll. I don't mind you putting your point across forcfully but that was below the belt - and i've just qualified what i said about network managers which is not unreasonable. Surely we all go by our own past experiences.

[Grommit]

 

 

To calculate correctly 'in-house' vs 'outsourced' costs in a bsf environment you'd need to calculate the costs of IT 'inhouse' across all schools, primaries, clc's etc.

within the autohority. Plus you've got a centralised IT policy with authority wide SLA's and consistent standards which just don't exist at the moment.

.

 

My Calculations is on what the site pays now for the in-house ICT Team and what the BSF Rates are for a Basic Managed Servies... and it's nearly double for less work.

 

 

I think you need a stripped down in-house school ICT department - but they should be managed by the service provider - whether that be transferred over into the employment of the consortium or not. And do away with expensive school network managers all together. It's what corporations have been doing with very mixed success for several years.

 

Why in God's name would I want to do that.. what you propose is me losing my job....

 

And for your information a lot of companies are taking their ICT Support back in-house after the disasters of outsourcing..

 

I wanna get angry with you with your stupid statement "expensive school network managers".. but I am a professional so I wont

 

Are you a Troll ?

 

My quote about 'expensive network managers' is from past experience where I have dealt with a number of network managers on between 28-32K a year who don't have to worry about providing dns, firewalls and a whole host of other solutions (because they are provided by the local authority) and that traditionaly to be implemented in-house in corporate IT .

 

Thats because we do many many other jobs that are not in the corporate world.... like AV, CCTV, Photocopiers, Telephones, Cashless Catering, Bromcom..etc

 

We have our own firewall and DNS servers... which is a very simple and 5 min job once setup and configured...

 

 

 

As for you getting angry. There's plenty of reason for you to be angry about as I'm questioning your role and the role of others under BSF

But surely that has to be done and is being done - your roles are bound to change under bsf, and it seems a lot of managers like yourselves want to preserve the status quo as far as IT is concerned

 

 

There is no position for Network Managers under the BSF.. we get TUPED as technicians or have to leave.....

 

What we are saying is not that Managed Services is bad in all schools as many many schools need it as they are in a bad IT condition...

 

But it's that the schools with good ICT Departments are being forced to destroy the in-house services

 

And as for calling you a Troll... well it's a bit bizarre that every Professional and their Head Teachers on this forum DO NOT support the BSF ICT Managed Service Model .. yet you come along ....been on here for only 2 weeks....... and support the destruction of many schools supurb ICT Departments..

 

What is your role in the Education sector if i may ask ?

[torledo]

 

 

To calculate correctly 'in-house' vs 'outsourced' costs in a bsf environment you'd need to calculate the costs of IT 'inhouse' across all schools, primaries, clc's etc.

within the autohority. Plus you've got a centralised IT policy with authority wide SLA's and consistent standards which just don't exist at the moment.

.

 

My Calculations is on what the site pays now for the in-house ICT Team and what the BSF Rates are for a Basic Managed Servies... and it's nearly double for less work.

 

 

I think you need a stripped down in-house school ICT department - but they should be managed by the service provider - whether that be transferred over into the employment of the consortium or not. And do away with expensive school network managers all together. It's what corporations have been doing with very mixed success for several years.

 

Why in God's name would I want to do that.. what you propose is me losing my job....

 

And for your information a lot of companies are taking their ICT Support back in-house after the disasters of outsourcing..

 

I wanna get angry with you with your stupid statement "expensive school network managers".. but I am a professional so I wont

 

Are you a Troll ?

 

My quote about 'expensive network managers' is from past experience where I have dealt with a number of network managers on between 28-32K a year who don't have to worry about providing dns, firewalls and a whole host of other solutions (because they are provided by the local authority) and that traditionaly to be implemented in-house in corporate IT .

 

Thats because we do many many other jobs that are not in the corporate world.... like AV, CCTV, Photocopiers, Telephones, Cashless Catering, Bromcom..etc

 

We have our own firewall and DNS servers... which is a very simple and 5 min job once setup and configured...

 

 

 

As for you getting angry. There's plenty of reason for you to be angry about as I'm questioning your role and the role of others under BSF

But surely that has to be done and is being done - your roles are bound to change under bsf, and it seems a lot of managers like yourselves want to preserve the status quo as far as IT is concerned

 

 

There is no position for Network Managers under the BSF.. we get TUPED as technicians or have to leave.....

 

What we are saying is not that Managed Services is bad in all schools as many many schools need it as they are in a bad IT condition...

 

But it's that the schools with good ICT Departments are being forced to destroy the in-house services

 

And as for calling you a Troll... well it's a bit bizarre that every Professional and their Head Teachers on this forum DO NOT support the BSF ICT Managed Service Model .. yet you come along ....been on here for only 2 weeks....... and support the destruction of many schools supurb ICT Departments..

 

What is your role in the Education sector if i may ask ?

 

I don't support the destruction of any ICT department. Having worked as a IT support and consultantcy in education I think schools are ideal for some kind of managed service - how that is realised is often very different from the ideal, but there's nothing wrong with the principle and hosted services have worked.

 

As for firewalls and dns being a five-minute job to setup - maybe in your world, but there's a lot more to firewall design and setup and securing of dns than that !!! But then I suppose with the many hats you have to wear you have to be a jack of all trades....

 

Anyway I don't want to divert this thread into being a minor spat. I'm just being devils advocate not trolling. If managed services is such a bad idea and the consensus is so anti and if i am the only onw to see the advantages for schools management why are we even talking about it all.

[bossman]

@torledo:

 

may i ask what you did in your previous life or could i hazard a guess?

[torledo]

@torledo:

 

may i ask what you did in your previous life or could i hazard a guess?

 

be my guest, so long as you keep it clean

[torledo]

@torledo:

 

may i ask what you did in your previous life or could i hazard a guess?

 

be my guest, so long as you keep it clean

[webman]

By the tone of most of your posts and ideas towards BSF, I'd guess you're in upper management

[Grommit]

By the tone of most of your posts and ideas towards BSF, I'd guess you're in upper management

 

Doubt it as it seems by his posts that he doesn't know what he's talking about .. and anyone that advocates destroying the ICT Community within a school is a fool...

[torledo]

By the tone of most of your posts and ideas towards BSF, I'd guess you're in upper management

 

I'm definitely not in upper management - i still have to get my hands dirty.

 

I just like to see everything from all sides. I'm aware of the shortcomings of the LA - I've been frustrated with their slowness in responding to requests, i know they don't have anywhere near approriate helpdesk and call center facilities.

 

But I'm impressed with how they're willing to think BIG. Big IT projects are notoriously difficult to impement and sure they fall short and sometimes they don't listen but there projects do add value - some more noticeable than others.

 

I see the frustration of the network manager in schools who can do without the interference and being dictated to. But Grommit mentioned the badly performing ICT departments and for those BSF gets them out of a whole - and if they're not up to the job then they're maybe not in the right sector. The people on these boards, even Grommit, don't fall into that category and they deserve the option to opt out or plough their own furrow - because all that matters is that things just work.

 

Now it appears that the return of RM and the financial transparity (or lack of) adds to the hostility toward the managed IT path. And I agree, and obviously the service provider will be driven largely by profit - but the way some service providers go about implementing projects does impress me. I'm quite envious of how they can plan and design and they're use of enteprise kit - for many primaries and schools without that ICT investment they're solutions can't be much worse than what the schools have to put up with at the moment.

[Lee_K_81]

I don't think it's wrong to be against how outsourcing IT in education has been implemented - but outsourcing has been happening for years in the large authorities - and the noises against have gradually quietened down. Becuase despite the odd tearing your hair out moment it has largely been a success in places like Rochdale and Birmingham. The large authorities have taken control of the procuring of leased lines, WAN access, web filtering, www hosting, firewallls - and this has and continues to extend.

Surely have these centrally hosted services not taken control away from schools ?

 

torledo, you use Birmingham as a prime example of how outsourcing is good. Fair enough, Birmingham is the largest council in the country and has formed a private jointly owned business with Capita to handle its IT Support. It has also outsourced www hosting & email, VLE, firewall, etc taking these things out of the schools responsibilities. However, and i know as i'm an information systems manager at a school in Birmingham, they do not mind schools internally hosting their own website, VLE, email, etc. Here most schools employ their own NMs / SMs etc. Lets hope every LA uses your example of Birmingham as a role model. We are still yet to see how Birmingham will be effected by BSF, but their company will retain some services.