LAs / Support teams accepting MIS referral fees

[Damon]

I just read an article on WhichMIS that was raising an issue where some MIS suppliers have been offering referral fees and revenue sharing for recommending their MIS to schools. I work with a variety of different support teams and everyone tends to say they're agnostic. However, I'm interested to hear if schools have been led by their LA or support team in a way that might suggest they were incentivised to do so. I can understand private companies doing it to an extent but LAs showing bias for cash leaves a bad taste.

[supportman]

We never had any recommendations and certainly no referral fees or benefits, We did speak to different schools around our area which was useful.

 

I think its important to have local support in the decision which is why we excluded iSams at the time due to their lack of schools.

 

In the end we made the decision based on actually using the demo systems.

[AlistairB1983]

LAs showing bias for cash leaves a bad taste.

If it were just simply showing bias as in 'we prefer this MIS as it's much better/user friendly/whatever' then that would be absolutely fine. It's a difficult enough job persuading SLT to agree to a change, LA's showing a bias/preference for a different MIS would definitely assist in that regard.

 

However if such bias/preference was as the result of being paid to do so, then that is obviously an entirely different matter and not one I would particularly be in favour of. Unfortunately given the state of funding within local government, I wouldn't be surprised if this is something which started to gain traction within LAs.

[Banjo]

When I worked within MIS support, Capita charged the LA £15k a year to support their product. Other providers, didn't charge the LA and were happy to provide training for free on their product and would transfer existing schools to the LA outside of their geographical area to start them off. Edited December 8, 2023 by Banjo

[Bromcom_Marketing]

When I worked within MIS support, Capita charged the LA £15k a year to support their product. Other providers, didn't charge the LA and were happy to provide training for free on their product and would transfer existing schools to the LA outside of their geographical area to start them off.

 

Hi Banjo,

 

Question is, did you get kickback from any MIS supplier on the basis that despite LA support centres foremost are impartial advisers:

 

A. You registered schools interest with that MIS supplier before school contacts the MIS supplier - early mover advantage to that MIS supplier

B. You the supported MIS supplier in promoting their product during the sales /evaluation process

C. You received referral fee/ kick back annually for the next 3 years if the school signed up with that MIS supplier

D. Finally, would your LA allow you to engage in such kickback scheme in first place eg governance or ethical grounds?