MAT IT Funding

[FN-GM]

Hello,

 

Currently at our MAT we top slice all the schools to pay for services such as IT.

 

However this method isn't really fair as some schools at a similar size have far more equipment than others. Also some have devices such as iPads that are just a nightmare.

 

I am looking at changing this to a per device formula. Do any other MATs do this? Maybe you do something different?

 

At the moment I am just looking to do this to fund the man hours rather than the equipment.

 

Any information on this would be fab.

 

Thanks

Edited May 17, 2017 by FN-GM

[Edu-IT]

Just because they have less equipment, doesn't necessarily mean they will require less support? Could have older, more unreliable equipment or very demanding staff and pay very little whereas a bigger school might have lots of newer equipment and much less demanding staff but will end up paying more?

 

Why don't you base it on student numbers, as this is what directly affects their budget and available spend? It's one common factor accross all of the schools not impacted by their technical setup.

Edited May 17, 2017 by Edu-IT

[Michael]

It should be done based on hours, simple really. If the school choose complicated devices and it takes you or one of your team longer, then so be it!

[elsiegee40]

My governor MAT top slices to cover HR, IT and Finance costs as well as central Trust support for school improvement. However capital expenditure for IT isn't included in the top slice.

 

It's swings and roundabouts as some services get used more than others. It's up to the Finance Director how these are apportioned between schools.

 

I agree with Michael that service cross charges are apportioned by time. Time sheets are the way forward just as they are in business for multi site or multi department cross charges

Edited May 17, 2017 by elsiegee40

[FN-GM]

Just because they have less equipment, doesn't necessarily mean they will require less support? Could have older, more unreliable equipment or very demanding staff and pay very little whereas a bigger school might have lots of newer equipment and much less demanding staff but will end up paying more?

 

Why don't you base it on student numbers, as this is what directly affects their budget and available spend? It's one common factor accross all of the schools not impacted by their technical setup.

 

There is a refresh policy for all schools once it ha reached a certain age it is removed or replaced. So we don't really have any old kit. The kit is all common across all sites. The equipment doesn't really belong to the school either, it can be moved between sites if need be.

 

Being based on student numbers isn't fair, this is what is done now. If one school has a one on one device (quite possibility happening) and another doesn't one school will be subsidising another. Same if one school issues a Desktop and a Laptop to each member of staff and another school has desktops only. We have one school that has a many more laptops compared to the others, so these require more support. All these variables make the per pupil system unfair.

 

Number of hours also doesn't work out either, as all core services are shared and it starts to make things very complicated when these are worked on. Also that was the LA method and wasn't popular. We do not go into schools for X number of hours. We go as when we are needed. Charging my the number of hours also makes a nightmare for estimating budgets etc. There may also be political issues as to who pays for time spent on things like conferences, or if MAT decides to make system wide changes etc. If we charge per hour it will also put schools off wanting large upgrades or changes because there maybe a larger support demand to iron out teething problems. It is felt that this method maybe a roadblock to learning.

 

Over the past 3 years, look back at the status, there is a correlation between the number of devices and the number of service requests. The trend hasn't followed the number of staff or students.

 

On this, we are ruling our per hour and a blanket per pupil top slice. I am however considering a per pupil model for core services such as email, managed print etc.

 

Just of out curiosity how many of you have worked in a MAT IT department please?

Edited May 17, 2017 by FN-GM

[Michael]

I do agree it's a bit of a grey area, but in my experience it's based on where you're physically at. You can do a lot remotely, but it means also you're at your primary location and can see to problems as you're on site. If you're physically in another building, that's where it gets complicated, even though 'technically' you could probably do the reverse and dial back in remotely to your primary site.

[winng]

 

 

Just of out curiosity how many of you have worked in a MAT IT department please?

 

I have when I was in SE London. I believe the central services were funded by a fixed percentage of the individual school budgets, i.e. 5% for example, no matter how many students, devices, demand, etc although those same budgets would have been funded on 'x' amount per pupil......

[localzuk]

We're looking at this very thing at the moment.

 

I think we can all spend time coming up with complicated ways to top-slice, but the reality is that in a MAT there will always be an element of subsidising each other. Whilst one school might use more IT support time, they may use less HR or admin time etc...

 

We're likely going to simply stick with the number of pupils method of calculating it I think.

[elsiegee40]

The top slice of X% of GAG (that's the income per pupil) is effectively a per pupil charge.

 

I agree with localzuk that these things can easily be over-complicated.

 

The percentage top slice covers more than IT so what needs to be negotiated is what share of the top slice from the trust schools goes into the IT pot (and some of it won't because it's paying your salaries) for you to spend on shared services... that is stuff that benefits all, or most, schools and infrastructure work.

 

When you are doing work specifically for one school, a hardware install say rather than "shared service stuff", then your calculations for the job should include both the capital expenditure and a cross charge for time spent on the job.

[PotNoodleTech]

Probably the only fair way of doing it is to provide granular IT support contracts for different systems, and then an opt in hardware contract for each device if they want it. Make it as granular as possible as some schools may want everything supported and some may not.

 

Internet & Filtering Support £x/yr

Server Network contract £x/yr

SIMS & Exams support £x/yr

etc

Hardware support contract £x/yr consisting of:

Dell PC £x/yr

Monitor £x/yr

Ipad £x/yr

etc

[sippo]

We have negotiated very good deals for SIMs and ISP for our schools. This is paid centrally. IT support is costed out to cover IT Services wages.

 

We have two 'visiting' IT Technicians. Those costs are relevant to the amount of devices.

 

Mine (Network Manager) and Senior Tech is based on pupil numbers.

 

So we have the three costs split across 8 schools.

 

This works. Thankfully its down to the finance director to sort it all out.

[ITinHull]

Morning all,

 

I'm just looking at this at the moment for the Trust that I work for. I'm struggling to work out a fair way to deal with damages/repairs. Does anyone have any thoughts or could let me know how they deal with repair costs?

 

We're looking to hold a central IT budget which will replace all IT hardware for each school on a 5-7 year basis. I'm thinking that schools should pay for repairs themselves as it means that they have more ownership of the equipment and would look after it better. Our central pot of cash can be for developmental/replacement work then. Otherwise I guess it would be holding back 10% or so to cover these repairs.

[psydii]

Two thoughts: a per device charge based on the amount of hours per year you already can estimate.

 

Or a per pupil allocation with an hours equivalent clearly stated, showing and shortfall/overshoot on a per school basis.

 

Liaise with all the schools (including their finance and their education and local tech it leads) showing the two models. Get some feedback and then run them in parallel (the two new models for reference, the current model as the live system) for a year to see what the numbers look like. Meet quarterly with the schools to show them how each one stack up. I would suggest that you need to work with people who are fully bought in to the Trust, since unless you are offering a dramatic improvement from the perspective of front line staff, their will be considerable levels of politics to handle. Local politics is best dealt with by local people.

 

Get feedback and tweak as necessary. Then in year two move to the model that works the best.

 

For breakages, definitely charge the schools and include that in your quarterly report. Each school should see the full report, so they can benchmark their performance/costs against other schools in the trust.