ict_support Posted November 19, 2009 Posted November 19, 2009 How much does it cost for your school per year for their MIS system? Currently we use CMIS /E-Portal and it comes in at 16k a year!!
ntm1275 Posted November 19, 2009 Posted November 19, 2009 Our LEA uses RM's Integris G2 with a cost of less than £5000 per year for a secondary school Because it is fully web based, there is no need for a portal, and can have full access (with the correct permissions) from any internet capable PC (school or home)
john Posted November 19, 2009 Posted November 19, 2009 MIS systems are often based on modules take, support level needed, length of contract and number of pupils on roll. My Serco one was based on number of students and modules taken.
Sivadam Posted November 19, 2009 Posted November 19, 2009 How much does it cost for your school per year for their MIS system? Currently we use CMIS /E-Portal and it comes in at 16k a year!! We pay a LOT less than that for virtually ALL of SIMS packages (except Dinner Money - mainly Junior and Admissions - mainly for Independents). This includes Capita Hosted SLG! You may be a bigger school but it is easy enough for any school to get a quote from any MIS Software provider.
ticker Posted November 20, 2009 Posted November 20, 2009 its also because Serco doesn't go through LEAs, where as SIMS usual does and the buying power of a LEA is strong than an individual school.
Sivadam Posted November 20, 2009 Posted November 20, 2009 We moved away from LA Support to Direct Support with Capita. The differences in our case were negligible. So my post above is still valid.
pete Posted November 20, 2009 Posted November 20, 2009 its also because Serco doesn't go through LEAs, where as SIMS usual does and the buying power of a LEA is strong than an individual school. A bit under £5K this year. We have our own SIMS single-site licence.
ict_support Posted November 20, 2009 Author Posted November 20, 2009 Thanks all for your replies, is there any Serco/eportal users with an intake of 1500 pupils that I can compare against?
TronXP Posted November 20, 2009 Posted November 20, 2009 We have around 1000 students and our serco/eportal comes in at about 14.5k ex vat
Sivadam Posted November 20, 2009 Posted November 20, 2009 And we are approx. the same size. SIMS is much cheaper than that for us!
CyberNerd Posted November 20, 2009 Posted November 20, 2009 better if you post cost per pupil than overall figure
Alice Posted November 20, 2009 Posted November 20, 2009 A bit under £5K this year. We have our own SIMS single-site licence. My school has recently been looking at changing MIS systems, so we have been looking into MIS costs. I think prices in this thread are not being compared like to like here. Many factors play a part in the price of an MIS system. For instance the above SIMS price I am assuming is referring to mainly the on going annual maintenance and support cost of the MIS, after the capital costs having been paid originally way back whenever the school or LA purchased the license for SIMS Software (hence the low cost). Our school is too in this category. What I hear from other schools is that ordinarily, the price for a complete MIS for a secondary school from Capita can be as much as £28,000 – this is when capital costs are factored in as well as annual maintenance and support costs. Prices mentioned from other suppliers in this thread (RM or Serco etc..) are factored in the cost of the new software licenses. Do others agree with this?
Sivadam Posted November 20, 2009 Posted November 20, 2009 Goodness knows where you got that astronomical amount from Alice. It is absolute nonsense! I repeat what I said above - get quotes and then compare!
michael2k6 Posted November 20, 2009 Posted November 20, 2009 Alice, Thanks for pointing this out. As i'm not sales related i don't know about the cost of the MIS i support. Please do identify yourself though so your post is credible, i'd like to know who you are too! Thanks Michael Sanderson Technical Engineer Serco Learning
pete Posted November 20, 2009 Posted November 20, 2009 Prices mentioned from other suppliers in this thread (RM or Serco etc..) are factored in the cost of the new software licenses. Do others agree with this? Ish. The OP was asking for a per-year cost and the £5K is our per-year cost. Saying "but if you bought it new it would cost more in Year 1" is pretty obvious. But having said that, we were using SIMS long before Capita got involved - I'm not sure how much it cost back then, but I suspect it was considerably less than our current annual maintenance.
ntm1275 Posted November 21, 2009 Posted November 21, 2009 (edited) Goodness knows where you got that astronomical amount from Alice. It is absolute nonsense! I repeat what I said above - get quotes and then compare! One of our secondary schools of less than 1200 pupils moved from Serco to Capita in 2008 with no LEA support, and the first year invoice was over £33,000 before VAT, and that includes all costs - initial licence, training, annual support Subsequent years are just over £6000 before VAT for the annual maintenance If Capita was supported by our LEA, the cost would most likely have be less Alice's quote was about correct for the first year costs for Capita for a single school Most new MIS systems will be more during the first year, because of training costs and initial licence costs Most of our schools are on RM's Integris G2/S2, which does not have an initial licence cost, and the LEA funds the training, so no costs there either for our schools Edited November 21, 2009 by ntm1275
kylewilliamson Posted November 21, 2009 Posted November 21, 2009 My understanding is that you don't actually purchase a CMIS license, you just pay for the annual license with the maintenance. SIMS should be cheaper year-by-year but will have an initial up-start cost for licenses etc that'll be greater. Kyle
vikpaw Posted November 21, 2009 Posted November 21, 2009 At my old school, with SIMS coming centrally from the LEA, i remember we had to pay a contribution towards the licence cost and then our annual maintenance on top of that. Here we pay upwards of £10k for our 1500 pupils, and that includes having Lesson Monitor, Sims Learning Gateway, Curriculum & Lesson Planner, Timetabling (i think that is an add-on). I don't recall seeing licence costs on the invoice, it just seems to be made up of the annual maintenance fees now, but adds up with all the modules. We are an independent here, and so direct with Capita. I know when we looked around before the cost of a total new system could cost upto £30k or more, but then you were in a position to bargain and there were big discounts being offered.
Tiger Posted November 21, 2009 Posted November 21, 2009 One of our secondary schools of less than 1200 pupils moved from Serco to Capita in 2008 with no LEA support, and the first year invoice was over £33,000 before VAT, and that includes all costs - initial licence, training, annual support Subsequent years are just over £6000 before VAT for the annual maintenance If Capita was supported by our LEA, the cost would most likely have be less Alice's quote was about correct for the first year costs for Capita for a single school Most new MIS systems will be more during the first year, because of training costs and initial licence costs Most of our schools are on RM's Integris G2/S2, which does not have an initial licence cost, and the LEA funds the training, so no costs there either for our schools ntm1275 , Very interesting account. ntm1275, are you able to tell us which LA this relates to? Does your LA apply "top slicing" funds for support & maintenance for MIS chosen by LA (Serco in your case). Schools righly complain about "top slicing" funds. Top slicing means schools pay twice for maintenenace and support, first of all for LA chosen MIS (in your case for Serco which school does not use) and then one that the school chooses (Capita - in your example). How injustice this must be!! It would be an unfair incentive for the school to stick to LA choice for such fundemental facility running a school. To decide to pay £33,000 (before VAT) for a new MIS means the school feels strong enough for their choice to invest such amount of money!
ntm1275 Posted November 22, 2009 Posted November 22, 2009 (edited) There is no top slicing for our Secondary schools We have a prefered supplier, which is RM, but Secondary schools can choose which MIS they go for Each of our 4 Capita Secondary schools chose to go with Capita before we went through a recent LEA tendering process for our prefered MIS system Those 4 schools have decided to stay with Capita as they have invested a lot of money in recent years when they moved from Serco The remaining Secondary schools have chosen to go with our prefered supplier (but at a reduced cost due to the tendering process), but they still have to pay for it themselves, apart from the training costs, as this is done in house by our LEA training team We don't have any objection to the use of Capita, but there is no direct LEA help with any software problems, so these 4 schools have to go directly to Capita Edited November 22, 2009 by ntm1275
Oops_my_bad Posted November 22, 2009 Posted November 22, 2009 After reading this thread I don't think I'll ever again complain about the cost of SIMS!
Jeremy69 Posted November 23, 2009 Posted November 23, 2009 The cost for my school this year is about £6.4k (School over 1000 pupils). If we added a module we had not had before then that would be an additional cost. We did have a look at SERCO sometime ago to see what else was out there and it was the preferred LA solution. The sales people were quite reluctant to specify exact costs but after some dancing around it came to about £14-15K each year i.e. not just a starting up cost which seemed to be getting on for 2.5 times what we paid at that point. Couldn't see how that was any sort of value for money.
Serco_Rob Posted December 4, 2009 Posted December 4, 2009 As Business Development Manager for Serco I've got a pretty good handle on MIS prices from all MIS suppliers. Our MIS is based on pupil numbers, and rather than be modular our core MIS includes all aspects of key school management as well as parental access and e-registration. I visit many schools where they pay for the LA endorsed MIS but then pay other suppliers for add on systems. You have to compare the full range of functionality. It is true that where LAs offer a central license for an MIS it can be cheaper - so as Capita SIMS has historical had the percentage of the market (at the moment) there are lots of established relationships. In the same way, in the LAs where we supply our MIS to the majority of schools in that LAa we have a central license with the LA and there are economies of scale and reductions in price. I would love it if all LAs did a review of their MIS so schools could compare systems and prices. We have tried to approach all LAs in this way. Im happy to talk price with any school and justify it in relation to their existing supplier or existing setup. PM me to discuss. Thanks Rob
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now