Lease or buy? BSF

[Guest Guest]

In April 2009 our area should have been taken over by a managed service. That leaves us next years budget to think about. Now what do we do; if we lease then effectively will we only pay the first years lease, and then the managed service will have to pick up the rest of the bill?

 

Is this correct?

 

Any thoughts?

 

Also any other info welcomed as we simply cant find any answers to any of our questions by asking our LEA/etc.

Edited December 10, 2008 by Guest

[dhicks]

Any thoughts?

 

Does the managed service come along and completely replace all the IT equipment? If so, what happens to the "old" kit? If you buy new kit now can you dish it out second-hand to staff / pupils next year? Might be a good way of getting each member of staff a laptop or PC for use at home, or maybe some PCs into the homes of every pupil in a given year?

 

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David Hicks

[Guest Guest]

Does the managed service come along and completely replace all the IT equipment? If so, what happens to the "old" kit? If you buy new kit now can you dish it out second-hand to staff / pupils next year? Might be a good way of getting each member of staff a laptop or PC for use at home, or maybe some PCs into the homes of every pupil in a given year?

 

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David Hicks

 

Good thinking ill pass the message on to the administrator.

 

To answer your question, we dont know, no one we ask knows, and no one seems to know who to ask either... hence why im asking on here.

[dhicks]

To answer your question, we dont know, no one we ask knows, and no one seems to know who to ask either...

 

Excellent. Buy a bunch of new equipment, then the day before you hand over to BSF, hide it. That way you get a school full of nice new equipment and a shed someplace stuffed full of various kit you can dish out to staff. I'm actually semi-serious here - if you start with the assumption now that BSF will be coming along with all new kit and making appropriate plans to have all your stuff properly dealt with (budget for a certified data-wiper to come and give your machines the once-over before being given to teachers / pupils, for instance) you should be able to get a good wodge of kit to do useful stuff with.

 

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David Hicks

[contink]

Thinking about this logically... I'd get your school bursar to look into the legalities of who will own what, what happens to depreciation, etc... and get a definitive answer as to what can and can't be done.

 

I suspect if the question is one of:

 

- if we buy this and then sell/give it to the staff after one/two years what will we have to charge, do, etc...

 

... you'll get lots of teeth sucking.. BUT, if you phrase the same question as:

 

- if we buy this and then BSF come in, who gets to keep it, do we sell it, do they just throw it, etc...

 

... then you'll find the penny drops and they'll see it's worth finding out now.

 

 

I'd imagine it's the legal/tax side of things which will be most prevelant... and it's not like the BSF managed service just suddenly own everything is it...

[Sylv3r]

I think i'd be careful with this one. A similar post here was mentioned about staff. Any staff employed after a certain date with BSF will not be budgeted into the MSU. Similar I would think to hardware, they is also nothing I wouldn't think stopping them of having a nosey into the recent orders placed over the last 12 - 24 months and asking questions where the kit has gone.

[contink]

I think i'd be careful with this one. A similar post here was mentioned about staff. Any staff employed after a certain date with BSF will not be budgeted into the MSU. Similar I would think to hardware, they is also nothing I wouldn't think stopping them of having a nosey into the recent orders placed over the last 12 - 24 months and asking questions where the kit has gone.

 

The question is the same... Do BSF schools suddenly stop being owned by the LEA, governors and school? There seems to be an assumption that needs challenging here.

[russdev]

Lot of bsf places you get told 12 months before the bsf contract that you can't buy anything just replacements etc ...

 

Russ

[asynchro]

I hope I can clarify a couple points. There are two types of lease, capital leasing (where you own the kit at the end) is not allowed in most authority areas due to accounting rules, so we can concentrate on revenue leasing (where you don't own the equipment at the end). As part of the BSF bid process, schools have to declare all and any contracts that extend beyond the data of the BSF start, including any outstanding ICT support contracts and lease agreements. If these extend into the BSF service their cost will be accounted for by the bidder, and passed to the Local Authority, who in turn will pass the cost back to the school, or the school will pay a one-off to buy out the lease.

 

If entered into after the BSF start date is known this would have to be declared prior to going ahead, and would be actively discouraged by most LA's, or passed to the school. Of course the school could hang on to the kit and continue to pay for it and use it as legacy if agreed with the new BSF provider, but they wouldn't maintain it without charge.

 

In most cases its best to save the money and buy additional kit at the start of the BSF service.

 

The other query relating to ownership of schools. There are two types of build, a PFI, where you give over the building to the PFI contractor who keeps it all in good order for around 25 years, all inclusive. These are where 70% or more of the buildings are replaced. If less than 70% (i.e. where more than 30% of the buildings are retained and refurbished) are called Design and Build (D&B). These are handed straight back to the school governors, although the ICT managed service is a requirement, and the Facilities Management is often included as well.