Overcoming common outsourcing concerns: BSF
This article is from December 2007. To receive the latest issue, subscribe here.
Steve Smith makes the case to governors for outsourcing the ICT element of Building Schools for the Future projects
The schools sector will experience a radical transformation under the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) initiative as every secondary school and half of all primary schools across England will be rebuilt or refurbished through the government’s £45 billion investment by 2020.
This is the biggest single government investment in school buildings for over 50 years and one of the most ambitious public building programmes ever. Not only will schools be renovated, but the pattern of educational provision will change through a complete overhaul of ICT infrastructure and services.
A constituent part of this initiative is that schools are expected to partner with managed service providers to procure, manage, maintain and refresh ICT infrastructure and equipment. Managed service providers will manage the ICT services within a school and offer a tailored solution to address ICT needs at every level, from basic helpdesk support through to comprehensive management and support of the entire ICT infrastructure.
This can be a daunting prospect for schools, particularly those who are yet to undertake this process. It can raise concerns over perceived loss of control and the stifling of innovation, an increase in workload, the possibility of disruption, cost-effectiveness and the success of the partnership.
Sharing control
Many schools currently employ their own technical support staff, set their own ICT priorities, purchase software and control implementation. The concern therefore is that a partnership with a managed service provider might change this and consequently hamper innovation.
In reality, good providers fully support in-house teams and work closely to encourage innovation. Far from experiencing a loss of control or receiving a generic solution, schools benefit from a comprehensive service tailored to meet their unique needs. Schools are given the opportunity to choose the software, content, infrastructure and services required from a global supply chain that offers the best of all products on the market.
All in a day’s work
An element of apprehension exists that this project brings substantial increases in workload, taking up valuable time – a scarce resource for any school employee! In the short term a period of increased workload is unavoidable. This is absolutely critical to the success of the project. However, the benefits of investing sufficient time in the initial phases will certainly become clear in the long term.
Managed service providers offer highly supportive engagement processes to enable staff to contribute to the project without feeling too burdened by an increase in daily workload. New or improved ICT facilities also help free up staff time to enable focus to be placed on other areas.
Keeping to schedule
Given the scale of each BSF project, it is inevitable that a level of disruption will be experienced. A certain amount of bedding-in time is necessary while everyone becomes familiar with the process, but good managed service providers offer training and support at every stage, whilst keeping technical issues to a minimum. For instance, proposals often include utilising school holiday periods and phasing plans to fit in changes around the school’s annual timetable.
Financial matters
The total cost of ICT is frequently underestimated by schools. To establish a true reflection of expenditure, calculations should include direct costs, ranging from employment and training of in-house ICT staff to hardware and software. Of equal importance are indirect costs, which often get overlooked, such as informal support – for example, the drain on staff time in the event of unforeseen problems.
As ICT is often the highest cost in school budgets after staffing and building costs, appointing a managed service provider makes financial and logistical sense. Providers commit to budgets within which all software and services must be installed and managed and problems fixed. Therefore responsibility for a consistent and effective level of service is passed on to a third party rather than being a persistent concern for schools.
Good relations
Establishing a new partnership is a worrying time for all involved and all parties need reassurance of a strong and successful alliance.
Managed service providers aim to achieve effective partnerships with schools and endeavour to explain fully their expectations as well as understanding schools’ key performance indicators and required outcomes. Good providers take full account of everyone’s view and possess the ability to engage with people at the right time and in the best way.
Growing with BSF
Under the BSF initiative students will be educated in world-class, 21st century learning environments – inspirational environments that teachers will be proud to teach in and pupils will be eager to learn in.
As schools and ICT communities come together to turn the government’s ICT vision into a reality, schools must embrace the benefits that this programme offers and, from the ICT viewpoint, ensure a strong and successful partnership is developed with a truly flexible managed service provider.
Steve Smith is Business Development Director at Ramesys, a leading ICT provider to the education sector. He is a former deputy head at a technology college.
Comments
Dubious
Whilst this is clearly intended to be a highly partial opinion piece, given the author's position in a company providing ICT managed services, it does raise valid questions.
Where do the Managed Service Providers see the cost savings coming from when they take over a school's ICT provision? Perhaps more than any other ICT environment, supporting schools requires an incredible range of skills, both technical and "soft". The environment may be demanding in terms of physical abuse and vandalism of equipment; it will almost certainly be demanding in terms of the variety of new technologies and pace of development.
Exactly what fat can be cut out without giving each school an inflexible and unsuitable one-size-fits-all IT setup? Even reaching that basic level is going to necessitate a great deal of expense (and naturally waste) which will be picked up by the taxpayer.
IT staff under the current system are directly accountable to the school for their performance. Statements such as:
"Therefore responsibility for a consistent and effective level of service is passed on to a third party rather than being a persistent concern for schools."
...fill me with dread as a school employee. For a managed service provider to be so naive as to think that schools will no longer be concerned about the running of their IT systems is seriously worrying. Divesting themselves of control is likely to generate a greater level of concern as they have limited or no means to negotiate change when dealing with a supplier which dwarfs them in size. Add to this the restrictive contracts that schools are tied into by their Local Education Partnership and you have a situation where schools are dominated by, rather than partnered with, a Managed Service Provider with no means of escape.
From a school's perspective it is a seriously unfavourable and unbalanced prospect.
Managed Services vis a vis Local Support
While I have no doubt that managed services within the educational environment will be here for the foreseeable future through BSF I have concerns that once again we will end up in a situation where support requests take far too long to be resolved and add to the frustration of teaching staff who have little time as it is. Not too many years ago I worked in a school with a managed service, the support desk was filled with robotic screen readers who invariably could solve a problem and had to have them referred to someone else
If a managed service provider fully supports in-house teams and work closely to encourage innovation, if schools benefit from a comprehensive service tailored to meet their unique needs, if schools are given the opportunity to choose the software, content, infrastructure and services required what is the benefit to moving to a managed service as this provision is already in place?
If the school requires non-standard support in particular for CISCO infrastructure would this incur additional costs outside of the normal support costs?
You intimate that indirect costs are often overlooked such as informal support – for example, the drain on staff time in the event of unforeseen problems. Do you envisage therefore that there will be no such drain on staff time and no unforeseen problems with a managed service and that all problems will be resolved promptly?
"Under the BSF initiative students will be educated in world class. 21st Century learning environments - inspirational environments that teachers will be proud to teach in and pupils will be eager to learn in" - We have a school that already follows this direction and the students passing through its doors are testament to that with another massive increase in pass rates this year.
I understand the need to embrace change and improvements to technology and in my role as a Network Manager this is always at the forefront of my mind and we are always looking to improve our service and support to our students, teaching and support staff. I feel your article on BSF is a kick in the teeth for people like myself and my team who work tirelessly day and sometimes night and weekends to ensure that the service provision we give to the school is second to none.
I am concerned only for the school and my own team and the level of support and efficiency it will receive to ensure that they can function to the same or a better level than they currently do. I hope for the sake of Education and the students that your managed services are as "Truly flexible" as you are selling to schools across the country.
I have no concerns over my own role although there are no firm guidelines as to what would happen with my position but am for my team. I can walk into a position anywhere within the IT sector, sadly it all sounds like the death of the network manager within schools which is a shame as many of my colleagues at other schools provide a fantastic service to their customers with often no thanks.
I will of course embrace this change as Steve says we "must" do as to the benefits of this I am still sceptical and yet to be convinced on how the service provision can be improved.
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