BSF Managed Services Costings Outragously Expensive

[Grommit]

I know the Managed Services consists of all the PC's and Printers at approx £100 per child..

 

But..

 

What about.

 

Vandalism: Will this be an additional cost if the "BSF Company's" Technicians have to repair damage to equiptment ?

 

CCTV and Access Control: Will this be included in the £100? as our Access Control and CCTV maintainance package is quite high as we do not have a bog standard IP camera set up but a "new" Verint dedicated System.

 

Whiteboards: Promethean are not RM so will there be additional costs to the school as RM don't fix Promethean Boards?

 

After Hours: Will there be additional costs for weekend calls and evening calls ?

 

Would a ticket have to be raised for every job and then each job assessed to see if is part of the SLA .. ( and if is not part of the SLA like additional CD installation, moving a printer, replacing a vandalised mouse) then would the technician not work until a signed purchase order had been raised ?

 

Would the School Management be able to instruct the technicians as the technicians really no longer work for the school and they only jobs they do are the ones raised through the helpdesk and instructions recieved from the Managed Service Company?

 

 

Our School now..

 

1200 Kids

 

ICT Staff: £55 000

 

Jobs handled

 

PC's, Servers, Printers, Vandalism, Projectors, Telephones, AV for lessons, AV Screens, OHP's, Hand Holding for OFSTED and other Lessons, Lesson Covering, SIMS (installation and bug fixing at workstation), Cashless Catering, Photocopiers, off site AV productions, Access Control, CCTV, Library Database, TV's, Plasma's content, COMPLUS Tanoy System, CCTV event capturing, VOIP, Video Confrencing, and legacy equipement (3 year old PC's and Servers) which are still working fine but the BSF said they would not support..

 

maintainance CCTV: £25 000

 

Total £75 000 for everything 18 hours a day 7 days a week

 

BSF Basic Cost: 9 - 5.... 5 days a week

 

Support Contract Basic cost £120 000 = £100 per child

 

this is a basic cost for only Servers, PC's (under 3 years ) and Printers

 

Additional

 

maintainance CCTV £25 000

 

Cashless Catering: ?

 

Telephones: ?

 

Photocopiers:?

 

Legacy Equiptment:?

 

AV and Media:?

 

After Hours: ?

 

Vandalism: ?

 

Alsrady the costs have doubled and we haven't even started ...

 

And the BSF pays for the first year and then the School has to pay out of its own budget for the next 4

[beeswax]

Grommit, can I point you in this direction?

might it not be a good idea to get merge these two posts?

[beeswax]

Had a meal out with some friends last week, and in conversation mentioned the name of the company/consortium which is going to be providing our managed services. This group already provides for her department, and she asked them for a quote for two new computers, and they came back with £5000. That's not a typo. Five thousand pounds.

[CyberNerd]

Had a meal out with some friends last week, and in conversation mentioned the name of the company/consortium which is going to be providing our managed services. This group already provides for her department, and she asked them for a quote for two new computers, and they came back with £5000. That's not a typo. Five thousand pounds.

 

This is the area that desision makers don't pay attention to, ultimately the schools will get stung for any extras they want. In schools its very difficult to determine what the requirements will be in the next 5years and being stuck to one inflexible supplier is such bad news. Innovation will be suppressed in BSF schools.

[GrumbleDook]

This is why the LEP is the most important group. It is up to them to tie the companies down to costs. One suggestion is that the companies still have to purchase through Catalyst or similar agreements so that schools know what the cost of the hardware is irregardless of what the company is.

[Grommit]

This is why the LEP is the most important group. It is up to them to tie the companies down to costs. One suggestion is that the companies still have to purchase through Catalyst or similar agreements so that schools know what the cost of the hardware is irregardless of what the company is.

 

I know for a fact that the company that the won the LEA tender to supply a price list for kit for schools in our LEA (RM) is more expensive than my supplier that gives automatically 3 years warranty on all equiptment..

 

When I raised this i was told RM has been chosen and thats that.. you have to buy from them for this project.

[GrumbleDook]

Write a news article about it, make sure that you have substantial info to back it up and pass it on to the local press, El Reg and the BBC ...

 

Force it to be investigated. Be careful though ... you are aware of the hassle they can give troublemakers so you might want to pass it onto someone else.

 

Also try and find out whether it is the LA forcing this or the supplier (or both) ... remember that it is not just money involved but politics too.

[CyberNerd]

don't the press already watch this site? If I was a technojournalist I would.

[Face-Man]

There are certainly going to be a lot of cheap IT equipent on ebay soon.. I've just heard that due to standaization our local authority will only be able to have one supplier of whiteboards so half the schools will be scraping the ones they have that are the "wrong" type. And as for printers ......

[psydii]

we're encouraging open book, and a commitment to keep prices competitive with market rate.

[Grommit]

we're encouraging open book, and a commitment to keep prices competitive with market rate.

 

How can you have an open book when you HAVE to buy from the selected supplier ..

[localzuk]

There are certainly going to be a lot of cheap IT equipent on ebay soon.. I've just heard that due to standaization our local authority will only be able to have one supplier of whiteboards so half the schools will be scraping the ones they have that are the "wrong" type. And as for printers ......

 

I was thinking this today - the market is going to be flooded with ex-school computers of decent-ish spec, projectors, smart boards, networking gear etc...

 

Now would be a good time to start a computer refurbishment company/liquidation firm...

[john]

There are certainly going to be a lot of cheap IT equipent on ebay soon.. I've just heard that due to standaization our local authority will only be able to have one supplier of whiteboards so half the schools will be scraping the ones they have that are the "wrong" type. And as for printers ......

 

I was thinking this today - the market is going to be flooded with ex-school computers of decent-ish spec, projectors, smart boards, networking gear etc...

 

Now would be a good time to start a computer refurbishment company/liquidation firm...

hey hey we all know that Smart are the rule of the IWB

Sorry it should be an open race

[psydii]

When Accenture took over Sainsbury's IT, they 'put beyond use' the almost new 3com kit that they replaced with 'bignamevendor'.

 

A friend of mine spent a summer with a big hammer decommissioning the kit he'd been installing only months before.

 

How long is the initial contract for? Projectors don't last for ever, but if they integrated legacy kit that was in good shape you could stretch your refresh towards the end of the funding period making the money go further.

 

On my open book comment: The key thing is the commitment to match market rates + agreed markup.

[CyberNerd]

How long is the initial contract for? Projectors don't last for ever, but if they integrated legacy kit that was in good shape you could stretch your refresh towards the end of the funding period making the money go further.

 

AFIK the inital contract is 5yr minimum and schools are requested by LA not to buy new kit - presumably their budgets are progressively cut in run up to BSF

[psydii]

So you are saying that schools are being 'asked' to run down EDUCATIONAL services to make BSF look better?

 

I can accept that principle when it comes to building maintenance. However, if already in place, ICT is critical to student atainment.

 

Anyone who finds themselves in this situation needs to push hard to, at the very least, maintain and refresh existing kit and keep their IT team on the top of their game. In this business if you are not moving forward, you're going backwards.

[Quackers]

Who will maintain the school website under BSF?

[broc]

How long is the initial contract for? Projectors don't last for ever, but if they integrated legacy kit that was in good shape you could stretch your refresh towards the end of the funding period making the money go further.

 

AFIK the inital contract is 5yr minimum and schools are requested by LA not to buy new kit - presumably their budgets are progressively cut in run up to BSF

 

My understanding of the BSF ICT funding is as follows:

 

In the year(s) leading up to BSF, schools will find their budgets 'pruned', in particular losing a chunk of devolved capital. Many schools have used devolved capital to invest in ICT equipment and infrastructure in the past. They won't be able to do this, so ICT funds will dry up.

 

Once the initial BSF ICT purchases have been made and your new systems are up & running there will be no annual, additional ring-fenced ICT funding provided to schools.

 

'Entry' level BSF payments start at around £90 per student per year for a minimum of 5 years, for which you get the managed service. If you want equipment to be refreshed during the contract, you elect to pay more. This builds up a 'fund' to be used to pay for replacement kit. Otherwise you have to find the money yourself & pay the service provider for new kit out of a catalogue of equipment they have decided to supply. If you want something not in their catalogue, it may be provided with additional support costs as it is non-standard.

 

Repair costs for equipment accidentally or deliberately damaged by students, staff etc may or may not be included as part of the contract, depending upon how smart the LA staff are at building/negotiating the initial contracts. If they choose to keep the initial costs to schools down, these will be excluded from the contract.

At the end of the day, someone has to pay. You either fund it yourself or pay someone else to fund it; if you pay someone else there will be a 'management' cost added.

 

It is difficult to see where things will end up long term, my personal view is that many schools will end up being worse off, either financially, and/or they will have less equipment.

[Grommit]

Bottom line is.. The first year is paid for by the BSF and the other 4 years the school has to find it's own funding..

 

So if you get a school of 1200 Students at £100 per child thats £120 000.00 per year.. just for the basic Managed Services..

 

The school then has to find £480 000.00 for the next 4 years out of it's own pocket.

 

This is the basic.. this is without PC's being new purchased after 3 years and no legacy equiptment being supported, nor any additional support like damage..

[GrumbleDook]

@Grommit

 

It is meant to be per child per year ... if it is not then someone is not giving you the correct figures or is moving the money elsewhere. As Broc has said, if you want a 3 year replacement schedule then it needs to be built into the costs at the beginning and not somewhere in the middle.

 

The idea behind this was to ensure that ICT (in all matters) is included in the 1, 3 and 5 year development plan for the individual school and cluster in general.

 

This has not been happening and it will leave schools in some difficulty.

 

This is mainly down to the people that sign on the dotted line (LEP, heads, LA bods) not communicating or not having listened to what they were told to do. The NCSL course on this is likely to be revamped to try and redress some of these issues.

 

Also remember that Pathfinder schools may have had additional funding from other areas or projects and this has allowed them to be flexible about purchasing arrangements.

 

As for websites ... BSF is meant to include a portal and MLE ... this becomes the school website and it should be set up in such a manner that even a numpty can change the news, the calendar etc .... this is what many schools have been asking for for a whileand why the work that SysMan_MK has done on Joomla has been so popular.

[BooBoo]

A school close to me has taken their ICT out of the managed service. They had a site manager working on site for the PFL. Any IT requests had to come in writting to him from the headteacher, they where then sent to the PFL's head office to see if was a chargable request. Once confirmation of charge or no charge was agreed the PFL scheduled their IT tech to do the job. If it was a chargable request the Head had to agree to the cost and fax a purchase order over to the PFL's head office, who them scheduled the job.

 

Think 3 weeks to move or install printers.

 

A two pence piece in a floppy drive was counted as vandalism and the drive replaced, even if the drive worked after the coin was removed. 10 minute job £65 charge. Replacing 15 in August soon mounts up.

 

The school now have their own IT dept and things are looking up.

[localzuk]

@BooBoo - See, that is the exact thing that worries me about BSF and managed services.

 

I think it would be terrible for schools to end up with that sort of service - especially when it costs so much.

[Grommit]

@Grommit

 

It is meant to be per child per year ... if it is not then someone is not giving you the correct figures or is moving the money elsewhere. As Broc has said, if you want a 3 year replacement schedule then it needs to be built into the costs at the beginning and not somewhere in the middle.

 

.

 

thats what I said.. 1200 Pupils at £100 each = £120 000.00

 

and times by the 4 years after BSF = £480 000.00 needs to be found for the BASIC service.. and no changing of Floppy Drives with 2p's in...

[GrumbleDook]

The per child per year is meant to be a lump sum at the beginning ... so if you are told it is £100 then for the 5 years you get £100 x 1200 x 5 = £600,000.

 

Admittedly, this covers the spend on *all* IT, so you get the servers, the software, the desktop, the laptops and then you work in the additional costs (replacement after 3 years, spare parts, additional hardware, etc)

 

I have only seen one plan so far to cover these costs and it was ok ... but made some serious errors on pricing (failing to price from the catalogue and basing it on the original bulk purchase costs!) and failed to take into consideration little things like user stupidity / user damage.

 

Who told you that you only have funding for one year? Did they tell you everything it would have to cover? Does it presume that the costs of the network infrastructure are already covered? IWBs and projectors?

[greenfieldsupport]

If only i had a budget of half a million pound for 5 years....

 

think of the things i could do...

 

lets see what i get at the moment...

 

*thinks*

so thats £5,000 .. times by 5... 25,000?

 

yeah I can see a big difference there...