IT Support Services Team - Costs MAT

[NetworkBoss]

We don't GAG pool, therefore the costs within our MAT come straight from the schools budget for IT Support Services Team. IT Support Services Team do not come from the central pot either.

 

How much and how should we charge the schools for a central IT Support Services Team? Keeping in mind that we will need IT Support Technicians, Senior IT Support Technicians and Infrastructure Engineers plus an Assistant IT Support Manager and IT Support Manager. Currently we work on a "contribution" method, but it doesn't work and needs to be changed.

 

As a trust we do not want to out source IT, we want to keep as much as possible within the MAT.

 

How do you charge the schools for IT Support Services Team?

[PotNoodleTech]

Firstly you have to get something clear in your head and the powers that be's heads - as it's been proven time and time again over the last two decades. Outsourcing ICT drives up costs, often significantly, and reduces service quality, sometimes significantly. Fact.

 

So keep it in house at all costs. People who actually want to work for you and improve things.

 

As for the funding, it's difficult. Schools are notoriously tight - they won't want to pay anthing greater than £0. You'll have to do some good speadsheets to work out the costs and then decide are you expecting each school to fund the IT service 100% or is the MAT going to share some of the cost centrally?

[Steve101]

How do they charge for HR or Finance staff? How do they charge for the quality team etc.. Why is it not the same?

 

If it's anything like previous MATs I have worked then you'll have an ever increasing Finance department that seems to have no trouble finding the money for staff.

[NetworkBoss]

So our HR and Finance are somewhat centralised, I'm not allowed to know the costs, I've already been there and asked. Our department has no "Director of".

 

I'd ideally like to know from other MATs, how they charge the schools, is it done on pupil numbers, staff numbers, devices, infrastructure etc. I'm wondering if it's worth getting quotes from external suppliers to give us a benchmark on how much it would cost to outsource then reduce it so it looks attractive for in house.

[NegativeKillDeath]

You could use this to get an idea of what other schools spend their money on. Home - Financial Benchmarking and Insights Tool - GOV.UK

[Steve101]

So our HR and Finance are somewhat centralised, I'm not allowed to know the costs, I've already been there and asked. Our department has no "Director of".

 

I'd ideally like to know from other MATs, how they charge the schools, is it done on pupil numbers, staff numbers, devices, infrastructure etc. I'm wondering if it's worth getting quotes from external suppliers to give us a benchmark on how much it would cost to outsource then reduce it so it looks attractive for in house.

 

Don't get quotes and base off that, these external companies are set up differently.. they make money in different ways like supplying equipment that they then sell to the schools, they charge consultancy fees for separate services not in the contracts.

[synaesthesia]

That sounds like quite an odd request for a public forum - my question would be "why on earth hasn't an existing MAT already thought about this and implemented prior to taking on schools" ?

[Patrick]

Sounds like they need to employ a Director of IT at the MAT. Figuring all this out is the first step and is a fair old challenge. Once that person has then worked out costs they can then start to build the team they need to deliver, probably staggered over a few years. That person will then be in charge of the team, contracts and future direction of IT within the trust. Edited February 12, 2025 by Patrick

[psydii]

Sounds odd that they want you to cost it out, without letting you see how other similarly centralised services within the mat are themselves costed.

 

As for benchmarking against others - it also depends what is in scope for the IT service to be delivering. I've seen things fall apart because the incoming MSP and the local SMT did not appreciate their existing inhouse service delivered way way more than desk-side break fix and backup tape changes. Watching SLT panic as they ran out of paper and toner, and teachers weep because the technician was not allowed to spend an hour with them training / developing curriculum materials. Who does the Business Manager call if they need remote access to the CCTV on a Sunday?

[Fazza]

We dont GAG pool either (but I think we're going that way so we can get some big Estate projects off the ground at our smaller Academies) and I think what we basically do is take the cost of running the central services team (from IT to Finance) and then divide it up proportionally between the Academies. When we need an apprentice adding to the team, this obvisouly increased the cost so our FD and CEO spoke to all the Heads about the plan as the amount of money we would take from them in the new financial year would be increased.

 

We're in the process of onboarding another Academy that has sought to join our MAT so unless the central team needs to expand to take on this extra Academy then the cost split between all the Academies would actually go down slightly.

[Sylv3r]

The central IT staff all come from the 5% school contributions to the MAT. Which also includes the HR, Finance, Governance teams etc.

 

This team consists of a CTO, IT Director, IT Services Manager, Web Designer and MIS Lead.

 

All secondaries have both an IT Lead and Technician which come from their own school budget.

 

We have 3 technicians that support the primaries. We charge all primaries a flat fee of £2,250.00 per school.

 

Then any licences etc for SENSO, Microsoft are charged to each school based on their staffing numbers for both secondary and primaries.

[HereIGoAgain2601]

There are so many different ways to work this out and there is no one size fits all approach. It will depend on the ultimate level of centralisation and the type of support and control needed. I have seen some Trusts just employ a “manager” who oversees the existing school based staff, this doesn’t tend to end well and ends up with lots of headaches and ultimately changes when they realise it doesn’t work. Others will try and copy the SLA costs of local providers where primaries are involved but this doesn’t usually cover costs - as others have said they usually do these as loss leaders and make money on selling equipment that the MAT wouldn’t. They also charge for projects which again the MAT wouldn’t want to. I have also seen other MATs where they include asset replacement and licenses in the costs as well as staffing; so this is usually a % of each school’s GAG but means they don’t need to fund anything else.

 

Luckily in my current trust everything is centralised and we fully GAG pool; we have a really good staff structure that changes with the needs of the Trust and the budget to invest strategically. We don’t have every role but who does!

 

My advice would be to draw up proposals for if you want an IT team that does X it will cost y. If you want a more basic service we can do it at Z cost.