New budgets

[techyphil]

less this year, around £60k but we've got good deals with dell and they always provide us with quality hardware and support at a much much cheaper price... then we knock them down even more.

 

We also have no internet connectivity to pay for 3 yrs but that money has been held back to use else where.

 

btw who uses sims capita support? This 1-5 star support stuffs? Its really expensive even for the smallest 1 star package which still doesnt include a remote in.

[boomam]

So do all you get a lump sum?

And then you decide when computers/laptops/printers are needed?

 

Because all i get is an amount for 'repairs'. And then anything above that has to be something ive had planned, and then approved at the beginning of each financial year. With the head of ICT deciding/suggesting to SMT rooms that need new computers in.

Edited April 11, 2008 by boomam

[steve]

Any chance you guys can work out the budget £ per pupil and repost.

 

£200K is about £110 per pupil (Although about half of it will actually be on staff)

 

So do all you get a lump sum?

And then you decide when computers/laptops/printers are needed?

 

Our school receives its money in quarterly amounts from the LA. I've never been asked to wait until the next payment comes in.

 

Replacements and most upgrades are part of a 3 year plan. Most years though we have extra things - this year more P16 PCs as it 6th form is growing.

[CHR1S]

Not seen the budgets here yet, but I know were on a tight one this year too

[Pete10141748]

£42 per pupil

 

and that's not taking into account that a majority of the budget will be spent on staff, not pupils.

How are we supposed to survive on that!?!?!

[localzuk]

Works out about £32 a pupil for us this year, compared to roughly £200 a pupil last year. So just a small drop...

[Butuz]

I have not read the rest of the thread because it will just make me angry

 

£5k again this year for puchase of equipment. £1.5k for Repairs.

 

Same as last year.

 

Frankly - I don't know why I bother trying to drive the school forward. It's hard enough treading water!

 

Butuz

[Butuz]

Haha just read the thread anyway - so thats £6.50 a pupil

 

Butuz

[localzuk]

I have not read the rest of the thread because it will just make me angry

 

£5k again this year for puchase of equipment. £1.5k for Repairs.

 

Same as last year.

 

Frankly - I don't know why I bother trying to drive the school forward. It's hard enough treading water!

 

Butuz

 

Surely your school will get more than that in ring fenced funds? Ie. Funds that have to be used for ICT?

[Butuz]

Not sure really.

 

As far as I understand it our LEA has redirected ringfenced funds from ICT, Welsh Language and Inclusion into Basic Skills & Transition, Revised Curriculum & Assessment, Pupil Support Welfare & Health.

 

Mind you - LEA have just finished a nice new headquaters, and of course we all have to pay for the Welsh Assembly building don't we

 

Butuz

[Pete10141748]

Haha just read the thread anyway - so thats £6.50 a pupil

 

thats gotta be borderline illegal!

how can schools expect to put in such pi$$ poor amounts of funding and get modern, fully-fledged systems?

 

Its all B*ll**ks if you ask me.

 

If our admin department can afford to spend £100 on a clock, £300 on a PC for the nurse who works 4 hours a day and mostly makes tea, and almost £4000 for a SIMS-compatible fingerprint-scanner-signin-and-signout system, why on earth are they so reluctant to actually put funding into things that are used for TEACHING.

 

Sometimes I have to remind myself I work in a school, and not just a giant showcase of flashy gimmicks to impress parents.

[TriggerHappyUK]

We are classified as a Technology School, have 1200+ pupils, 150+ teachers & support staff.

 

We have 8 ICT suites (20+ PCs), 2 classrooms & library with 10 desktops, IWBs in majority of classrooms, 45 networked printers plus numerous local printers. Each teacher has a laptop. This years yr7 all have school laptops (expanding with each yr7 year group).

 

Our budget this year is £10,000!

 

Although each department pay for their own consumables (toner, IWB repairs etc).

 

It's a joke! The majority of our desktops are 4+ years old! And they wonder why they run slowly.

 

My NM has been given a £18,000 budget to create 2 x ESX servers & 2 x 3TB SANs with a 10GB fibre link. (This summers project)

Edited June 11, 2008 by TriggerHappyUK

[Oops_my_bad]

Well, the request forms have been sent out.

 

Could anyone tell me what I *should* be asking for? For the past 3 years I've been given 10k to spend purely on IT "repairs" - this is for the upkeep of ~500 computers/laptops, 10ish servers, ~45 printers and all the infrastructure inbetween. Although I do tend to spend it on more wide-benefiting items such as infrastructure (as opposed to the abundance of broken laptop keyboards we've had this year) I make departments pay for cosumables such as projector bulbs and toner. Money for "new" computers/laptops/volume licensing comes from another pot of money that will stay pretty much unchanged

 

We've also just had a sixth form built, bringing our total computer/laptop count to 700 now.

 

So, would I be being a b*stard to ask for a bit more this year? Or am I asking too much? Especially given the current climate. To be honest 10k just about sees us through til February time but I end up postponing some in the 2nd part of the year incase of contingency. If anything major goes that I don't have in spares then I'd have to go to the bursar with my begging bowl. Just trying to guage what everyone else asks for really.

 

Cheers

Edited February 7, 2010 by Oops_my_bad

[srochford]

Comparing budgets like this seems a bit pointless! If I know that school A gets £25k but school B gets £50k I can't say which is better off without knowing how many pupils and the current state of the setup!

 

It's "nice" to get told at the start of the year that you can spend X thousand pounds but I think it's better for everyone if you have a long term plan - eg we will replace every desktop computer every 5 years, every laptop computer every 3 years. Over the next 5 years we will upgrade to 10Gbit backbone and 1Gb to desktop. We will replace all servers every 3 years etc etc

 

Doesn't particularly matter what the actual plans are (they'll be different for most places) but planning like this means that the IT people can make long term plans as can the finance people. It also clearly establishes the fact that IT does need ongoing expenditure - 30 years after IT started going into schools I think there are still governors who haven't twigged that you have to keep replacing and upgrading IT kit!

[Soulfish]

Comparing budgets like this seems a bit pointless! If I know that school A gets £25k but school B gets £50k I can't say which is better off without knowing how many pupils and the current state of the setup!

 

It's "nice" to get told at the start of the year that you can spend X thousand pounds but I think it's better for everyone if you have a long term plan - eg we will replace every desktop computer every 5 years, every laptop computer every 3 years. Over the next 5 years we will upgrade to 10Gbit backbone and 1Gb to desktop. We will replace all servers every 3 years etc etc

 

Doesn't particularly matter what the actual plans are (they'll be different for most places) but planning like this means that the IT people can make long term plans as can the finance people. It also clearly establishes the fact that IT does need ongoing expenditure - 30 years after IT started going into schools I think there are still governors who haven't twigged that you have to keep replacing and upgrading IT kit!

 

Certainly agree with this . The amount given per pupil is a much easier number to compare, but of course entirely depends on what your budget has to pay for. For instance we're just going through the process of doing the first proper budget/5-year plan that's ever been done for IT and I've been told that things like SIMS, the internet connection and all printing won't be paid for from my budget but elsewhere.

 

However projectors, new printers and virtually every other IT spend does come out of my budget (and doesn't get recharged to departments).

[SYNACK]

This is as usual a depressing comparison I just worked it out for one of my (primary) sites and it comes to £15 per pupil and this is one of the better years funding wise that we've had. This is after several years work pushing budgets upwards and actually implementing a replacement program - there were no replacement plans before then (when they were under a managed service).

 

As said above though this does not give the full picture as it depends on what is included. This does not include the lease of teacher laptops or a software agreement which is covered by the Ministry. On the other hand there is the 25-50% extra we pay on compareable hardware so that weighs in the other way.

[localzuk]

If I include all IT expenditure (not including consumables, as these come from either individual budgets or the 'printing' budget), I probably hit around £80 per pupil this year, next year will likely be a similar amount.