"Retainer" pay

[LeMarchand]

Just been asked about "retainer" pay by someone who feels they're not getting the best deal. They run a small office and pay someone £80/month (+ VAT) to be "on call" if they need help, but this has amounted to around an hour in the last financial year. This works out at a ridiculous rate for hours actually worked, but I think £80/month sounds reasonable. Mind you, they should try to get better value - they called him in to check the office manager had installed their "new server" (sounds like a NAS box) correctly rather than got him in to do it.

 

If it had been closer, and they could've waited for me to get there, I'd have volunteered my services - but I'm not free during office hours. So - do people think they're being overcharged?

[Katy]

Depends on what they get if they have to call him in - does the £80 include anything or not? Either way it's a bit like insurance really - waste of money if you don't need it but if something happens you're glad you paid up.

[DJ-1701]

I agree with @Katy, depends on what coverage they have. 24-7 help covered? X Hours onsite included? Though, £80 a month? Could be much worse.

[elsiegee40]

This is a bit like having a service and callout agreement for your central heating system boiler.

 

How much you pay depends on what you get.

 

Are you paying for standby out of hours? 24/7? Working hours only? During NM holidays?

 

Can you use them for telephone advice?

 

So much depends on the contract

[Marci]

We used to pay £700 per year for a funding consultant on retainer for P16... rarely needed him, but in the event of business cases etc over sums of money equating from thousands to tens of thousands, and funding optimisations that for the sake of him casting an eye over a spreadsheet for 20 minutes returned us an extra £18k in annual funding, it was well worth it.

 

Need to know the full terms of the retainer, and any specialist knowledge that the person can provide that isn't already in-house to know the true value of having that person available at the end of a phone / able to appear on site whenever needed.

[LeMarchand]

AFAIK the £80 includes all time "used" but not parts. I would assume that call outs are normal business hours and it doesn't sound like they phone for "my screen won't turn on". Doesn't even sound like they have more than a handful of non-domain machines + a NAS so no specialist knowledge.

[Oaktech]

Our Infant school had a chap on retainer for £300/month which got them scheduled backups (Via VPN to a removable hard drive in the guy's house ) and him onsite within an hour and something like up to 20 hours support in the event of an emergency *if they needed it*. They upped my pay by £150 a month sacked him off and profited!

[PotNoodleTech]

£80 a month is cheap as chips. I would avoid kicking up a fuss or he may end up charging you more!!!

[Katy]

AFAIK the £80 includes all time "used" but not parts. I would assume that call outs are normal business hours and it doesn't sound like they phone for "my screen won't turn on". Doesn't even sound like they have more than a handful of non-domain machines + a NAS so no specialist knowledge.

£80 a month for what appears to be "unlimited" labour is a bargain, I would expect he would also have an hourly rate as an alternative to a retainer (if it was me, I would) so if he does, they need to work out if it's worth having the callout with free time for £80/month, or £0/month plus whatever hours are required.