[bromcom] Bromcom has been chosen for NI schools

[nicholab]

Has anyone seen that Bromcom now has another 1100 schools by securing the Northern Ireland contact for 1100 schools?

[TheRobins]

Wow that is quite a scoop. As a user of Bromcom I do find it is so much better that what I had to deal with when using SIMS. I do hope however they are employing enough support staff and extra cloud servers to be able to manage the demand, sounds like a huge task.

[supportman]

Yep big win. Should shift the MIS charts as well.

 

Bromcom to supply MIS software to Schools in Northern Ireland – WhichMIS?

[PotNoodleTech]

I bet ESS and Arbour legal teams are looking very closely at how that contract was dealt with and awarded. Better be squeaky clean!!

[TheCookieMonster]

Huge win for Bromcom

[gszech]

Huge win for Bromcom in terms of earnings!! Good for them and hopefully they will invest more money for servers, developers and support staff.

At one point CAPITA had SIMS in most of the schools, it's not that this made SIMS any better... quite opposite.

 

If Bromcom decides to add NI Bromcom to the UK servers this would be a massive blow for UK schools. The UK server cluster and the scaling struggles as it is.

[coolhands]

Wow that's a massive dent in ESS customer base. They must surely be worried.

[gszech]

I'm impressed how the Northern Ireland Education Authority (EA) made such a big decision. All the 1100 schools don't need to go through a procurement process, compare platforms, price, modules, etc. It's all decided for them.

[supportman]

Yeh used to be Capita Sims only, they kept on renewing it every couple of years. That means this is a really big shift.

 

Northern Irish Education Authority extends schools IT contract with Capita | Capita

 

Capita announces two-year, £50.6m extension to IT service contract | Capita

Edited February 7, 2024 by supportman

[Rob_D]

I'm impressed how the Northern Ireland Education Authority (EA) made such a big decision. All the 1100 schools don't need to go through a procurement process, compare platforms, price, modules, etc. It's all decided for them.

It's no different from an LA or MAT doing centralized procurement, only on a bigger scale. I'd guess the schools have the choice to go out on their own if they want, but having the EA's support and backing is a pretty big carat to stay.

[gszech]

It's no different from an LA or MAT doing centralized procurement, only on a bigger scale. I'd guess the schools have the choice to go out on their own if they want, but having the EA's support and backing is a pretty big carat to stay.

 

I would love to see the DfE version of this for the UK ? This would save everyone a lot of work and time.

[Linfit]

It's no different from an LA or MAT doing centralized procurement, only on a bigger scale. I'd guess the schools have the choice to go out on their own if they want, but having the EA's support and backing is a pretty big carat to stay.

 

I doubt there is any choice. Its like Scotland, these things are determined at a national level and you get what you get. Simplifies a lot of things, not least for people moving between schools, but can result in stagnation and lack of innovation - the Scottish MIS is old, bespoke to them and its replacement is years behind schedule.

[Brax]

Congratulations to Bromcom, can only get better from here. The SIMS market share is going down rapidly.

[nicholab]

The centralised procurement must be rubbish working in a school I am not sure what IT techs do in schools over here. Stuck with a rubbish centralised contract and stopping innovation. My son has a federated logon on for his Office 365 not a modern experience.

[titch]

This is purely hearsay.

 

But I heard Arbour turned the contract down as northern Ireland wanted all schools onboard in 12months and Arbour said this was not possible and didn't want to offer something they couldn't see through.

 

Again this is hearsay. But fair play to Arbour if true.

[FN-GM]

I would love to see the DfE version of this for the UK ? This would save everyone a lot of work and time.

 

Northern Ireland is in the UK. I can’t see why it can’t be done in England.

Edited February 7, 2024 by FN-GM

[FN-GM]

The centralised procurement must be rubbish working in a school I am not sure what IT techs do in schools over here. Stuck with a rubbish centralised contract and stopping innovation. My son has a federated logon on for his Office 365 not a modern experience.

 

I see the benefits as well. If cyber security is centralised it may mean there is specialism in that area. Keeping children’s data safer. This is a guess though!

[Bromcom_Marketing]

I bet ESS and Arbour legal teams are looking very closely at how that contract was dealt with and awarded. Better be squeaky clean!!

The links will show how the EDIS tender was run as an open competition. It is claimed to be the largest contract of its type in Europe!

 

It was run as a “competitive procedure with negotiation”, which is a method of open competition. Open means that it was publicly advertised, and anyone/business qualified or interested is allowed to participate. It is worth nothing that the goal of open competition is to promote fairness, transparency and equality of opportunity, allowing the best submission to be selected based on merit.

 

Link to the tender (6^th May 22)

EdIS-22-001 Strategic Partner Services and School Management System (SMS) Solution - Find a Tender (find-tender.service.gov.uk)

 

With it being such a significant tender, EA started their pre-market engagement back in 2021 to explain the scale of the contract and start getting feedback from potential suppliers. This led a pre-market questionnaire released in February 2022.

Pre-market Engagement Exercise and Questionnaire for the Schools Management System, Part of the EdIS Programme of Work - Find a Tender (find-tender.service.gov.uk)

 

EA also publicly advertised this tender with a prior information notice (PIN) to ensure that interested parties were getting ready for the impending tender release. This was March 2022.

EA Strategic Partner Services and Schools Management System Solution - Find a Tender (find-tender.service.gov.uk)

 

Awarded contract: Strategic Partner Services and School Management System

Published 22 December 2023, 10:18am

EANI EdIS Contract published - value £485m.

EdIS-22-001 Strategic Partner Services and School Management System (SMS) Solution - Find a Tender (find-tender.service.gov.uk)

[coolhands]

did ess even bid for it

[Ditto]

I'd forgotten about this - https://www.edugeek.net/blogs/hedgehog13/2406-ess-threatens-capita-injunction-over-use-sims-northern-ireland-schools.html

 

I suspect the answer to the previous post is "No!".

[nicholab]

EES are a disgrace and the management should take a long hard look at themselves in the mirror. I don’t know how they can make such evil decisions against schools. This is the school data that they are trying to steal how can that be legal? Edited February 10, 2024 by nicholab

[IT_JB]

Interesting to see who the contractor is on the tender award. "FUJITSU SERVICES LTD" awarded just under a month before they decided to no longer bid for public sector contracts.

[nicholab]

Interesting to see who the contractor is on the tender award. "FUJITSU SERVICES LTD" awarded just under a month before they decided to no longer bid for public sector contracts.

 

Why does no one at these companies ever have any scruples or end up in prison?

[Bromcom_John]

Morning everyone,

Thought I would post these in the interests of transparency. It does relate to the subject of this thread and I wanted to assure any NI related personnel who may be on this thread of our (Bromcom's) commitment to the project moving forward.

First the unfortunate news

https://www.whichmis.com/485-million-fujitsu-contract-with-the-education-authority-northern-ireland-eani-will-not-continue/

 

Second our mission statement, which remains unchanged despite the information at the above link.

https://bromcom.com/northern-ireland

 

Thirdly, the communication which was sent out to our NI principals (it is repeated from the WHICH article)

 

Dear Principal,

 

I am writing to you with regards to the ongoing development of the EdIS Programme’s Strategic Partner Service and School Management Solution. As you are aware, this contract was awarded to Fujitsu in December 2023 following a robust procurement process.

 

After an extensive negotiation period between EA and Fujitsu, the parties have mutually agreed on a no-fault basis not to continue with this contract with immediate effect. We thank our colleagues in Fujitsu for their support and partnership over the course of the negotiations.

 

I would like to provide reassurance that you will not experience any disruption to services as a result of this decision. All existing services delivered through the current managed service will continue to be delivered and supported.

 

We are pleased to share that schools will still benefit from a new School Management System provided by Bromcom as planned. EdIS staff are continuing with their implementation schedule and the first schools will be migrated onto the new system in this academic year as previously communicated. Regular updates will follow throughout 2025. Due to the extensive package procured with Bromcom, EdIS will continue to work to bring additional services, such as Online Payments, to schools.

 

We are confident that this process will ultimately be of most benefit to Children and Young People. Work to deliver EdIS benefits will continue to push forward, ensuring best fit solutions for schools in the long term.

Edited November 21, 2024 by Bromcom_John

[PotNoodleTech]

John can I ask a question (you may not be able to answer based on the recent years legal shenanigans)

 

The main issue here seems to stem from the fact that a country wide MIS is being sought but the tender/contract is going through third party IT providers who are going to take some cream off the top of this massive contract, not directly from MIS suppiers.

 

Shouldnt the tender process have been directly from actual MIS suppliers not random third party IT companies?

 

Like it doesnt make sense to me - literally if you burst in to my office said to me hey were tendering for a new MIS Fujitsu are coming in at 10am I'd be like what the heck have they got to do with any of it they aint an MIS suppler, get Bromcom Arbor etc etc in to my office instead?