Cost Per Year for MIS System

[ntm1275]

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

 

A couple of years ago our LEA went through a review of our MIS systems, and invited tenders from all suppliers, but only Capita and RM responded

 

Why didn't Serco respond??

 

All our Serco secondary schools have now moved to either Capita or RM as the cost per year was far too expensive for CMIS/Portal and the support they received from Serco was very poor

 

Being a Welsh County, we found that Serco were totally ignoring the needs of Welsh schools

 

Every year at Census/PLASC time, or for the End of Key Stage Assessment Returns, the Return files were always in the incorrect format, didn't include the specified data, or totally broke the system

 

I would have to manually edit the XML files so that the school could submit the Return

 

When the schools rang up Serco's support line, they were disinterested and did not have the knowledge on how to proceed with fixing the problems

 

Since these schools have migrated away from Serco to Capita and RM, we have had no problems at all

 

So if your pricing is based on pupil numbers, can you explain why our Serco secondary school were being charged in excess of £14000 per year, when those now with Capita are paying less than £7000 per year and those with RM are paying less than £5000, and this includes ALL the features that Serco provided to them

Edited December 7, 2009 by ntm1275

[CyberNerd]

Sims costs us about 6k a year I think

 

not very good value if you only got 50 students

[pete]

@Serco_rob

 

Can you cut back on the fonts please, my eyes are starting to bleed.