School spends 35k on a photocopier!

[CSNM-Carl]

BBC NEWS | Politics | Schools waste millions - report

 

[SC-UK]

Awful, but not really very surprising

[Michael]

£35K for a photocopier is absolutely ridiculous. Does such a device actually exist?

[SC-UK]

If you read the article it was apparently a £1000 photocopier - although I'm not sure quite how they managed to get duped into paying £35K for it!

[CSNM-Carl]

£35K for a photocopier is absolutely ridiculous. Does such a device actually exist?

 

They probably got sold a support contract, spare parts and lots of toner!

[maniac]

That whole report is interesting reading actually. I keep going on about 'value for money' at my school and seem to be the only one who really does, as I've seen some shocking wastes of money in the last year - I think the doors that cost £2500 each is possibly about the worst I've seen.

 

There's no doubt about it, schools are going to feel the pinch of the financial crsis eventually and there's going to be a lot of changes over the next 12-24 months I feel.

 

Mike.

[p858snake]

That whole report is interesting reading actually. I keep going on about 'value for money' at my school and seem to be the only one who really does, as I've seen some shocking wastes of money in the last year - I think the doors that cost £2500 each is possibly about the worst I've seen.

 

There's no doubt about it, schools are going to feel the pinch of the financial crsis eventually and there's going to be a lot of changes over the next 12-24 months I feel.

 

Mike.

Please tell me those were fire safety doors with the push bar type handles to open them.....

[Michael]

it was apparently a £1000 photocopier

 

They probably got sold a support contract, spare parts and lots of toner!

 

Yes I did read that it was worth £1000, but even with support, parts, £35K is simply ridiculous. I think there's just a lack of common sense, but more importantly, getting multiple quotes stops this kind of thing happening.

 

Maybe school budgets should be head teacher salaries. I highly doubt they'd spend £35K on a photocopier then. The system in general has its problems as it's not their money but public money.

[t_h]

Shocking. For large purchases, we generally require at least 2 quotes before it gets signed off.

[FN-GM]

I doubt they paid that, probably a mistake down the line on the report.

[maniac]

Please tell me those were fire safety doors with the push bar type handles to open them.....

 

They are fire doors, i.e approved to various regulations, but normal internal ones and not external ones. Admitedly they are nicely made, but that's a lot of money just for doors - I know they could have spent less and achieved the same end result, and what's more annoying really is they were encouraging me to save a few thousend on the PCs that went into that area, when all along they could have saved money on the doors and let me spend a little more on the PCs.

 

Mike.

[tech_guy]

£35K for a photocopier is absolutely ridiculous. Does such a device actually exist?

 

It was probably on an Evergreen contract with Danwood....

[sparkeh]

head teachers appear to have no idea what value for money means

 

Wow thats not a generalisation is it? How ridiculous

 

Of course there are Heads who this does apply to but then I've always thought some kind of financial training for Heads is a good idea. I would argue that there are many Heads who this doesn't apply to. My experience is that my schools are short of money and everything is considered for cost vs T&L benefits. I'm not saying we always get it 100% right but then thats not realistically obtainable.

 

These blanket statements are no use to anyone (except headline writers).

[Jamman960]

Getting value for money is still down to the individual in most cases, I generally get as many quotes as I can and then either play them off against each other or decide which one gives the most value for money(not always the cheapest) yet our Bursar has just had a quote from our phone provider and is prepared to go ahead and enter the school into a 7 year lease without a single comparitive quote because "they've been good over the last 9 years with the current system"

[AngryTechnician]

Shocking. For large purchases, we generally require at least 2 quotes before it gets signed off.

 

There are plenty of places that don't strictly follow these rules. There are also a few who purposefully ignore them.

[srochford]

Yes I did read that it was worth £1000, but even with support, parts, £35K is simply ridiculous. I think there's just a lack of common sense, but more importantly, getting multiple quotes stops this kind of thing happening.

 

Maybe school budgets should be head teacher salaries. I highly doubt they'd spend £35K on a photocopier then. The system in general has its problems as it's not their money but public money.

 

I think there are plenty of heads who are very careful with the money - they've only got a certain amount of it to spend so if they spend £35k on a copier contract then they've got less to spend on computers or other equipment. If a school has a good bursar/business manager or whatever then things should be better but not all schools seem to do that and they're more of a target for being ripped off (and it's worth remembering that that is what's happening - no-one selling a copier at £35k to a school is doing it because they think it's the best deal; they're doing it because they're crooks - and note, that in the "private v public" argument, the crooks are generally private sector companies!)

 

Sadly, the "multiple quotes" doesn't always help - one of the other stories in the news this week (eg Builders fined £129m for rigging contract bids - Business News, Business - The Independent but the story was all over the news). If you have a group of companies determined to rip you off and you don't really know what something is worth then you're going to lose out.

 

I can't find details of what was actually included in the case of the photocopier but if the school was told that they were paying for the copier plus all costs for (say) 5 years then it might have seemed OK, particularly if they were escaping from an even worse contract (and there are some really bad deals out there in the world of copiers)

[grumpy_git]

Admittedly, we have implemented some cost saving here. We now have a member of the site staff who is a qualified joiner, so rather than paying a fortune for contractors to do things like putting doors or partitions in.

However, they have recently forced a member of staff who had 30 years experience in the building industry to leave - he knew everything about building regulations etc, and we would never be taken for a ride by contractors as they couldn't get their bullshit past him. Now he's gone, a dotty lady with no experience whatsoever is supposed to be overseeing it - I can see us being taken advantage of from a mile away!

 

Some of the waste which goes on is ridiculous. We spent about £2,000 on getting an ex-OFSTED inspector in last week - the report which he produced *I* could have written! I'd wager he copies and pastes the tripe, changes a few words, and sends it to the school every time he does this!

 

One of the other things which has annoyed me in the past is the amount of cover teachers have been given to go to meetings etc - these being teachers who have a 50% timetable so they can do their management role as well, and yet schedule meetings for the time they're supposed to be teaching! Hopefully the crackdown on cover will stop at least some of this...

[somabc]

I'm sure it was £5k for the photocopier with parts / toner / maintenance and £30k for the onsite Photocopier Engineer.

[Michael]

Sadly, the "multiple quotes" doesn't always help

 

I think the building example is an exception, but for anything else 9 out of 10 times I think obtaining multiple quotes does work.

It's not just work where you can apply the same rules. If I needed a plumber (as I know very little about plumbing) I'd call around a few places and get some prices.

[Andrew_C]

The only way I can imagine the photocopier actually coming out at £35K is if it was on a contract designed for low monthly use, and got hammered. The sort of pricing structure you get on low-end printers. Equipment dead cheap, but the consumables are extortionate. I still find it hard to believe!

 

Doors at £2.5k; I've seen how much our Works Dept charge. I'd believe that one!

[Guest monkeyx]

A second negative story released about educational spending within a week.

 

I see this as more of the politicians gaging public reaction to the idea of cuts in education spending.

 

But I am sometimes a cynical bugger sometimes

[GrumbleDook]

A second negative story released about educational spending within a week.

 

I see this as more of the politicians gaging public reaction to the idea of cuts in education spending.

 

But I am sometimes a cynical bugger sometimes

 

More a realist!

 

Yep ... I've seen similar costs for copiers based on misleading sales folk who do indeed sell a low-uage unit (typically having a higher cost per page on the rental agreement) and it is put in the main office and used as the network print station, the copier, the fax ... you name it. And the cost will be over 5 years probably too ... and the £35k is actually the predicted cost based on the 2-3 years spent so far when the school was investigated ... and given half a bit of decent advice the school would have gone back to the company and renegotiated or blown them out of the water for misleading sales!)

 

The report also apparently fails to mention the significant cost savings of many schools who do things like employ their own carpenter and then sell on their services to other local schools. It apparently also fails to mention that the wastage of money has come down since the introduction of the FMSiS award and that the courses from NCSL (Certificate in School Business Management and Diploma in School Business Management) also significantly reduce wastage.

 

But hey ... who would have thought it ... an internal report (strangely leaked) that tends to point that education needs to be an area of cost savings ... just when the Govt is talking about tightening our belts.

 

When I get a copy I'll pass it on. ;-)

[torledo]

More a realist!

 

Yep ... I've seen similar costs for copiers based on misleading sales folk who do indeed sell a low-uage unit (typically having a higher cost per page on the rental agreement) and it is put in the main office and used as the network print station, the copier, the fax ... you name it. And the cost will be over 5 years probably too ... and the £35k is actually the predicted cost based on the 2-3 years spent so far when the school was investigated ... and given half a bit of decent advice the school would have gone back to the company and renegotiated or blown them out of the water for misleading sales!)

 

The report also apparently fails to mention the significant cost savings of many schools who do things like employ their own carpenter and then sell on their services to other local schools. It apparently also fails to mention that the wastage of money has come down since the introduction of the FMSiS award and that the courses from NCSL (Certificate in School Business Management and Diploma in School Business Management) also significantly reduce wastage.

 

But hey ... who would have thought it ... an internal report (strangely leaked) that tends to point that education needs to be an area of cost savings ... just when the Govt is talking about tightening our belts.

 

When I get a copy I'll pass it on. ;-)

 

education as a whole IS an area where significant cost savings can be made - or atleast the allocation of funding has been a massive missed opportunity. It's been obvious for a number of years.

 

i've not read the report but does it mention or analyse the allocation of funding for various areas that come under the primary and secondary education banner ? Here you have a pic n mix of various initiatives [nulabour love these], grants, various pots of money which have been allocated, which would also throw up some interesting spending decisions i'm sure.

 

for me this report only touches the edge of what is a very serious issue. An issue which for me the politicians don't have the guts to tackle. it would be too easy to dismiss the notion of cost savings in education because this report doesn't highlight the issues you raise as far as schools that make money or do make savings.

 

The current political agenda seems to be about making savings via spending on staff. and it seems disproportionately focused on school staff. when we all know, and you will have done enough networking to know, that there's a whole ecosystem that receives public funds outside of schools and what each school receives as far as budgets. school budgets for staff and running costs are a bit of a soft target.

[torledo]

Shocking. For large purchases, we generally require at least 2 quotes before we get ripped off.

 

there. corrected for you.

[grumpy_git]

I do agree that there is far too much of the "pots of money" mentality. The school gets given money for something, and it has to spend it on that *specific* thing - even if we don't really need it.

 

A case in point - we have a few skylights which constantly leak and need repaired every couple of months. Around March time, the (now retired) caretaker went to the finance manager and said "look, these skylights are leaking badly, I'm spending hours of my time each day mopping up the mess, can we get the glazier in to replace them" - and was told there was no money in the routine maintenance budget, the only money being in the budget for repairing damage or vandalism. Of course, that night the caretaker went on the roof with a few stones... and the skylights were replaced the next morning .