GregJ

Hi, Hope you're all well. Quick question to see if anyone has used any of the following companies for networking and if you have any experiences to share... In no particular order: ICTN Network IT 24 Syscomm One2Call Cheers, Greg

At the Birmingham City Football Ground presentation to Birmingham Schools this afternoon Serco committed not only to continuing to support Facility (including the accounts module) for the next five years, but also producing the reports that Academy convertors will require to complete their financial reporting to the DfE using the YPLA financial handbook guidance – Paul Harrington actually said that they have people working on the reports at the moment. For me that certainly confirms that there is no necessity for Birmingham Schools / Academy convertors to move to a different MIS immediately. -Greg

@John Thanks for that John I shall see if Serco respond to the post I made on their forum and speak to them to find out which Leeds schools are using the system. -Greg

Hi, I'm posting to see if there are any schools in Leeds using the Facility CMIS Administration software that would be willing to speak to the East SILC Hospital and Home Teaching Service in Leeds. They are a split site teaching facility that do not currently have an MIS system in place, they want to find a suitable solution and are interested to know what the experience of other schools in Leeds is. If you are able to help out please let me know so that I can put you in touch with Penny Woodhead at the service. -Greg _____________________________ Greg Jones Data Manager James Brindley Hospital Special School Birmingham

I posted a query on the serco forum asking for some information on what will happen with financial reporting for schools transfering to academy status that want to continue to use Facility CMIS Accounts: "Is there a plan for Serco to produce an accounts GAG report, meeting the current requirements for financial reporting to the DfE, that those schools using Facility Administration software for accounts will need once converted to academy status? Have any of those newly converted academies (since September 2010) either been able to write these sorts of reports themselves, or obtain the information via an alternative route without having to implement a new accounting solution? " "Further to my previous email the guidance from the YPLA is available from the link: [link=http://readingroom.ypla.gov.uk/ypla/ypla-Academies_financial_handbook-gn-Nov06.pdf]Academies Financial Handbook[/link] The following pages give samples of the reports that need to be submitted (177-181, 185-192, 196-204 and a list of the reports to be submitted on page 209). Although the handbook is currently under review: ([link=http://www.ypla.gov.uk/academies/funding-and-finance/financial-monitoring-and-assurance/]YPLA Finance Monitoring page[/link]) This guidance does appear to have been in place since 2006 so I would assume that any schools that have converted since that date will have been required to produce these reports - are any of them using Accounts in Facility CMIS Administration to do this? The 'new' version of Capita's FMS includes reports to meet these requirements, will Serco be releasing a patch to include these reports for those schools that don't want to move away from using the accounting functions of Facility CMIS Administration, or are they happy to continue to loose more of these schools to FMS on their conversion to academy status? " I've not had a response yet though.

Hi, Thanks for that Phil, good to know. Any other feedback from schools who have been through the process would be much appreciated. Cheers, Greg

Hi, I after some information from schools that have moved to Academy status under the new guidelines since September 2010, where they had previously been judged outstanding by Ofstead. We are a CMIS school and currently use the accounts section of CMIS, I was wondering what people's experience with similar moves has been. Is it a relatively simple process to move with regard to the differences in dealing with VAT? Most importantly I'd like to know if there are specific areas that are no longer covered by CMIS once you've moved to Academy status. Any feedback would be much appreciated. Cheers, Greg