ictinterested

I am sure we all agreed that this has been a very bad experience and has not been handled in the way everybody might have liked or thought best but essentially the Webroot platform was no longer a supported option ad embc had no choice but to migrate. With hiondsight it might have been better to begin with a clean implementation but for the best of reasons it was decided to try and migrate rules, ironically to try and minimise disruption. Schools are being added gradually to try and prevent other issues. Try getting your LAs support in being added to the early adopters.

AVCO works for non embc schools. That service is not dependent on embc as it runs across the internet. EIS however is different. It is an LA service hosted within the embc portal. As such schools who are embc subscribers have access to the portal and because they are LA schools can access the content hosted in EIS. If an LA school does not subscribe to embc then they have to 'buy' a presence on the embc network so that user accounts can be created for access to the portal and so access the hosted content. There will also be some sort of charging for EIS content should a school or college become an Academy, but that is another matter. What do you mean by expensive ICT Consultant thinking they know what schools want? There are plenty of ways for school staff to let the LA know what is important to them both by formal and informal methods. Security matters are critical and there is a balance between what exists now which the LA provides within a secure network and the implications in terms of security and cost in making services available in more flexible ways. As money is moved to schools it will be a school choice on how to spend it. The difficulty is that fragmentation in suppliers is likely to mean a more diverse range of access requirements. Inevitably this means additional expense is necessary to provide the same secure functionality in by different routes. There is no money going to LAs to set things up centrally any longer so costs for service modifications away from the current arrangements will have to be paid for by schools.

There are a couple of points here. Firstly schools without an embc connection have to pay for EIS access as these costs are part of an LA schools contribution towards embc and LA services. The second part is related to the security of data that is transferred about the embc network. While some data transfer like AVCO does cross the raw internet other services operate only within the embc network where data is retained within the private network and therefore security is guaranteed. I am sure you are right in that Leamis will want to retain business but there could well be additional costs associated with this for schools using a non embc connection and it might not be possible to provide a secure service unless demand is high enough to warrant investment.

The EIS area will only get updated when there are updates to release to schools. There are strict protocols for the duration of the competative dialogue process so it will not be possible to release detail about the process during this time.

The procurement process will lead to a pricebook where services description and costs will be made available by suppliers. The contract is due to be signed by the end of October 2011 so schools should see costing information around this time. As progrees is made in the procurement process the LA will add information into EIS.

embc do not run a contended service - there is a paper based contention ratio but in practice schools (non ADSL connected) are not contended - there is sufficient capacity throughout the network - this is monitored and scaled according to need.