Building Schools for the Future plans to be scrapped

[Richie1972]

Going by what has been announced so far, I'd guess that most areas where bsf has been "scrapped" or affected will merely get the centrally managed ICT - the "ICT only" option.

In a few years time money will, more than likely, become available to re-build the worst schools on a school-by-school basis, with the rest getting re-models/re-painting where necessary.

So, as to where it leaves the IT techies: either stuck with the MSP they have (or will be TUPEd over to in some form or other) or looking for jobs out of the public sector

[mullet_man]

My school is listed as under discussion, we are do to move to an academy in Sept! We are to far in now for us to be stopped surely?

[DrCheese]

Going by what has been announced so far, I'd guess that most areas where bsf has been "scrapped" or affected will merely get the centrally managed ICT - the "ICT only" option.

I'm a little unsure how your working that out, the managed ICT part was a massive chunk of the funding by itself. It wouldn't make sense to say that the buildings are costing too much whist continuing with the IT.

[jsnetman]

I was told last week to kiss goodbye to the managed IT service, hooray, I was not in favour of it anyway, but there again schools need to be rebuilt so I'm a little dismayed at the severity of the cuts.

[Richie1972]

possibly, but the ict can be scaled back and still only be a fraction of the total cost - the government can then say that they may not be providing the new buildings, but they are providing the "resources"

This will, more than likely, be the route down which areas that have committed to bsf, but not completed building/re-modelling.

Bear in mind, this is just my opinion - I'm actually told nothing, so I'm just as much in the dark as everyone else

[russdev]

Anyone know the short code for RM's stock prices? I want to watch them freefall on my Iphone in the morning

 

Why BSF accounts for small % of their global business. One thing about RM CEO Terry (and tim before that) is they are very smart they planned for "BSF to end" years ago. the whole Computrac buyout was to combat some of the BSF ending...

 

Russ

[jsnetman]

I think any major IT company like RM and others are going to suffer todays announcement as well as builders. It's the builder I feel sorry for, most schools probably have an adequate IT infrastructure, but a lot of schools don't have good buildings. Why on earth lump in IT with a building contractor is beyond me.

[DrCheese]

True, pretty much anyone involved in BSF would have known long ago that the next government, would have been forced to scale it back after the last election. Even if the Labour party had stayed in power they would have eventually been forced to postpone large chunks of it.

As such, I highly doubt RM would have banked the entire company on it continuing as that would have been downright incompetent of the management team. But it will still affect their shareprice in the short/medium term as they stand to lose a lot of money over this, both in planned income from future projects and income from contracts they had recently signed that have now been suspended.

[teejay]

All our county BSF is scrapped, yay

[mrforgetful]

I must admit for my personal situation this feels like the best news I've heard in a long time.

 

I just wish some comments on the Internet and other media outlets would reflect the poor decisions so the average person can see how much money was been wasted and how many people were effected in a negative way.

[tmcd35]

I've got to say that this is one bad decision being made to fund another bad decision. BSF was the right idea poorly implemented. The Tories version of BSF is the 'Free Schools', which are a bad idea - building new schools in direct competition with and draining funds from existing schools.

 

I agree with what others have already said, cost could have easily been reduced by have a handful of basic template designs rather than paying new architectes to come up with over priced 'radical' designs for each new build.

 

BSF's biggest problem in my view was always the managed ICT services. I've never subscribed to the view that 1 sizes ICT fits all schools in that way. That said, I can see it as being a potential big cost saver and may just rear it's ugly head again outside of BSF. I don't think that because BSF itself has gone that our public sector jobs are now save. Far from it, I expect the axe to full at anytime with some cost saving annoucement leading to our mass tuping to RM or Capita, etc.

[bandgeekmafia78]

I think any major IT company like RM and others are going to suffer todays announcement as well as builders. It's the builder I feel sorry for, most schools probably have an adequate IT infrastructure, but a lot of schools don't have good buildings. Why on earth lump in IT with a building contractor is beyond me.

 

This is true. My cousin works for a construction company in London (Whitby Bird) and he has been relying on BSF to keep him in his job. They will now be potentially facing massive redundancies. While I've over the moon that BSF has been scrapped, there's always going to be someone else who loses out.

[srochford]

BSF's biggest problem in my view was always the managed ICT services. I've never subscribed to the view that 1 sizes ICT fits all schools in that way. That said, I can see it as being a potential big cost saver and may just rear its ugly head again outside of BSF. I don't think that because BSF itself has gone that our public sector jobs are now safe. Far from it, I expect the axe to full at anytime with some cost saving annoucement leading to our mass tuping to RM or Capita, etc.

 

I'm sure this will happen. Possibly not for academy schools (which will have less government control) but for other state controlled schools it seems extremely likely.

 

Outsourcing is used by pretty much every successful (and many unsuccessful!) companies in order to save costs - there's no reason why it can't be used successfully in school IT.

 

Why do we have (say) a network manager and 1 or 2 IT technicians in every school? Why not 1 network/IT manager per group of (say) 10-20 schools, with a few people doing 3rd line, a few more on 2nd line (perhaps based in schools - makes sense to keep them close to end users) and then people to take phone calls/answer emails (who could be in a call centre anywhere)

 

It's not what we're used to but there's no reason it can't work well. The benefit to education is that you save money and (ideally) good ideas get spread across all schools. The benefit to IT support staff is that there's no a decent career structure without necessarily having to move employer. Add in some proper training to that and it looks like a winner (and we'd hopefully have fewer posts on Edugeek from people who appear to be running a school network without the slightest clue about what they're doing!)

[torledo]

This is true. My cousin works for a construction company in London (Whitby Bird) and he has been relying on BSF to keep him in his job. They will now be potentially facing massive redundancies. While I've over the moon that BSF has been scrapped, there's always going to be someone else who loses out.

 

what about the olympics and other capital spending projects ? The budget mentioned something about not cutting capital spending on 'infrastructure'.

[jsnetman]

Why not 1 network/IT manager per group of (say) 10-20 schools

I would say this would be a very overworked network manager. Usually the NM is the person responsible for the more technical issues in a network like getting dodgy msi's to graft, or software installs at the drop of a hat. To stretch as far as 20 schools is a bit much, 5 maybe.

[timzim]

We've been informed officially this morning that BSF in our borough has been scrapped. So that was all a waste of time then.

[AngryTechnician]

Outsourcing is used by pretty much every successful (and many unsuccessful!) companies in order to save costs - there's no reason why it can't be used successfully in school IT.

Aside from my general opposition to privatisation of state services (given how drastically wrong it's gone in many cases), I've maintained for some time that the overall idea of moving to a more central model is not necessarily a bad idea. The two big problems with the BSF solution are the compulsion to do so, even when schools have a successful system, and that the contracts tend to go to least-cost bidders rather than best-value. Worst of all, some of the providers have a history of providing substandard and inflexible systems that will have those left in schools tearing their hair out for years.

 

Done right, the managed services component could work very well. Many schools leaders are clueless about running IT and would be much better off with it managed by someone knowledgeable. The problem is that the execution of managed services in BSF is/was fundamentally flawed in ways that have been discussed over and over here.

[localzuk]

I would say this would be a very overworked network manager. Usually the NM is the person responsible for the more technical issues in a network like getting dodgy msi's to graft, or software installs at the drop of a hat. To stretch as far as 20 schools is a bit much, 5 maybe.

 

That's the thing though - the network manager isn't really supposed to be doing technical things IMO. Their role, if you separate it out properly into 3 tier support, is to manage the people, manage the purchasing, and strategy stuff. Technicians are the frontline support staff, senior technicians are the second/third line staff doing server configs and the like, and the network manager manages that lot.

 

But then, as most schools only end up with a single person doing it all, it is easy to see how the lines blur.

[Dos_Box]

I've got to say that this is one bad decision being made to fund another bad decision. BSF was the right idea poorly implemented. The Tories version of BSF is the 'Free Schools', which are a bad idea - building new schools in direct competition with and draining funds from existing schools.

 

I agree with what others have already said, cost could have easily been reduced by have a handful of basic template designs rather than paying new architectes to come up with over priced 'radical' designs for each new build.

 

BSF's biggest problem in my view was always the managed ICT services. I've never subscribed to the view that 1 sizes ICT fits all schools in that way. That said, I can see it as being a potential big cost saver and may just rear it's ugly head again outside of BSF. I don't think that because BSF itself has gone that our public sector jobs are now save. Far from it, I expect the axe to full at anytime with some cost saving annoucement leading to our mass tuping to RM or Capita, etc.

 

I agree with your comment about buildings and architects. What would have been better would have been for the govt of the time to have contracted one set of architects and had them design a single school type (of a modular build) that met all of the modern schooling needs whilst allowing for future expansion and modification, that could have been built all over the country as had happend in previous school building waves throughout the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's. One design, easily modified to meet the requirments for differing sites would have saves an absolute fortunes in architects and building materials. As for free schools though, I am of the opinion that they could work rather well. With the ability to 'hire-and-fire', choose their own curriculum and focus on specilaist subjects that mainstream schools cannot or will not teach. Imagine if a school was setup that concentrated on 'real' IT? Networking, programming being taught alongside maths, and English. Would this be better than current 'specialist' computing colleges which run nothing more than advanced Office courses?

Edited July 6, 2010 by Dos_Box

[mavhc]

So managed IT services = communism, a good theory, but would never work in practise, yet you're forced to join

[jsnetman]

the network manager isn't really supposed to be doing technical things IMO

 

I have always thought of an NM you are a manager of a system not people, but obviously in this capacity you normally manage 1 or 2 techies at least in a school, in industry you would be a sys admin which is looking after the system not people.

[srochford]

So managed IT services = communism, a good theory, but would never work in practise, yet you're forced to join

 

Sorry, but that's nonsense! Managed IT services are used by very many "capitalist" companies who wouldn't dream of touching anything even vaguely resembling communism and they find it works well.

 

It's about trying to work out what needs doing and how best to do it - Microsoft, for example, don't do their own IT - they outsource it and (as I understand it) get it done pretty well.

 

It certainly shouldn't be some central diktat saying that "from tomorrow you will do IT like this" but about each school saying "what we have isn't perfect" (however good it is, it won't be perfect) and looking for how it can be done better.

[beeswax]

IT outsourcing not a cost saving - V3.co.uk - formerly vnunet.com

 

Finextra: Barclays to bring IT back inhouse as Accenture outsourcing deal expires

 

Confidence in outsourcing drops as CIOs consider bringing technologies in-house - SC Magazine UK

 

http://www.audit-commission.gov.uk/localgov/goodpractice/financialmgmt/pages/wlindseyict.aspx

[RobW]

Managed services are viable when they can use economies of scale .i.e they provide infrastructure & common software that is used by a company (Microsoft as has been quoted as an example). The trouble with schools is most use a hotchpotch of software and have different network designs so to support these would be very expensive as they all are, effectively, bespoke. Unless you can group schools together to use common infrastructure, common software etc. ( & will need initial investment) then the economies of scale cannot be achieve, which is where BSF came in......

[SteveBentley]

Keep an eye on what happens in the House of Commons today:

 

@BBCLauraK Out filming today, not in Wmin but just heard there were mistakes in list of school projects being cancelled yesterday-might be urgent Q