So far so good

This article originally appeared on the Future Online website as part of the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) support programme.

After some teething problems, it seems that managed ICT service contracts are proving their worth – and the approach taken by Sheffield City Council earned it an award.

Sheffield, together with its ICT contractor Civica, were winners of Most Effective ICT Partnering at the Excellence in BSF (Building School for the Future) Awards 2009 run by Partnerships for Schools (PfS), – and their experience highlights exactly what can be achieved.

What really struck the judges and PfS in this example was that the relationship between Sheffield’s eLearning development adviser Andy Wynne and Civica’s BSF manager James Grant, was clearly a partnership. However, it was not just having the documentation, performance measurement and quality assurance systems in place that was driving this partnership, but a real enthusiasm to make the educational processes work.

Sheffield got involved with the programme back in 2004–05, and secured Civica as its official ICT contractor in 2006. The authority has now opened four schools in partnership with Civica:

Yewlands School, a 900-place technical college in an area of deprivation, saw phase 2 of its development open in September 2009
Silverdale, a high-achieving school for 11–18 year olds, opened in January 2009
Newfield School, a 1,000-place school for 11–16 years olds which is co-located with the Talbot Specialist School, the 120-place special education needs (SEN) school, both opened in January 2009

“The city council chose a diverse cross-section of schools for the sample schemes,” says Andy. “We had a year to open the first school and then a further three months to open the next three. After a brief gap we will be bringing our next school into the managed service in February 2010, two further schools in April and another seven in September. By end of 2010 half the schools in the city will be in progress from an ICT perspective. We are also offering the remaining schools the chance to start using the managed learning environment before their new buildings open.”

Andy breaks Sheffield’s BSF programme into the delivery of three key components: the physical school; the virtual school (the custom-designed virtual learning environment or VLE); and the ICT managed service. And, so far so good!

“To date the programme has been very successful,” says Andy. “We’re very pleased with the result. We couldn’t have asked for a much better start, and good progress is being made in convincing people who were initially sceptical to take the managed service on board.”

Schools no longer 'technology islands'

Crucial to the authority’s plans was a centralised managed learning environment (MLE). “Our LearnSheffield platform, which has been developed by Civica, acts as the core of our networks and underpins a new way of doing things,” explains Andy. “We’re moving away from schools being technology islands, to a much more inclusive system. BSF has given us the opportunity to elevate every school to the level of the best and this centralised model is all about facilitating that change.”

With this in mind, it was essential for Sheffield to find an ICT partner that could handle this sort of transformation. “We were clear about what we wanted,” says Andy. “An organisation that could listen to what we needed and bring something we didn’t have. We felt we were ready for a step-change in terms of our ICT provision, but we needed a partner that could help drive our integrated vision forward as well as interpret and deliver a system that was responsive in terms of flexibility and would keep pace with developments in technology. We feel Civica has developed a model that really strikes that balance in a positive way.”

James explains Civica’s background and why that acted in the company’s favour. “We had no history in supplying managed services to schools, what we do have is a lot of experience of providing managed services to local authorities and the private sector,” says James. “So in some respects Sheffield took leap of faith with their decision.”

And it’s a leap of faith that has paid off so far. The lack of a track record in education turned out to be a bonus for Civica as it meant that the company had no preconceived ideas about what would work, and was able instead to focus on listening to the needs of the authority and the sample group of schools.

“Our engagement with schools is founded on listening and being innovative,” explains James. “We know lots of process and have systems in place to handle managed services, indeed much of the strength of our bid came from our experience of service transformation and leveraging competencies into new markets. But our relationship with Sheffield has been about designing the right service for them.”

Andy agrees: “Civica has been very responsive and very willing to listen, it has also been really hands-on in terms of managing schools’ expectations and helping to dispel the myths about managed service contracts.”

Civica has not been afraid to deploy additional resource where it has needed to. When the first school opened the company ensured that the help desk operatives were actually onsite so that school staff were able to build a personal relationship with them. “They flooded the school with technicians to ensure teething problems were easily overcome by the resources,” says Andy. “This went down extremely well.”

Hearts and minds

Prior to the first school going online the authority had to deal with all sorts of scepticism, but that has largely subsided thanks to the ongoing success of the service. “A managed service has to deliver,” says Andy. “If ICT is going to be a platform for transformation the ‘water has to come on when you turn the tap on’. Civica’s system worked well from the off, which has given people the confidence to move on.”

James agrees that this has been key to the success of Civica’s partnership with Sheffield. “We’ve rolled out four sample schools that have opened on time and on budget, and the implementation went really smoothly,” he says. “We’ve seen minimal deductions as part of the contract; everything has just worked. We always knew that there was a strong likelihood that this would be the case, but all the same it’s enormously rewarding to see that the managed service is working and schools are just able to use the technology.”

But it’s not been without its challenges. “It’s been hard in some cases to convince schools that operating within a managed service is worth it,” says Andy. “Some find it hard to hand over control and to take a much more commercial approach to their ICT infrastructure.”

The vision stays with the school

Fortunately, the success of Civica’s roll-out has made it much easier to convince the next wave of schools entering the programme, but, for James, winning over the sample group was about gaining their trust. “The only way to get people onboard is through engagement and persuading schools they are not going to lose control – that they are still responsible for the strategic direction of ICT,” he explains. “Civica doesn’t have a vision for BSF, it’s all about working with individual schools and authorities to give them what they want. Our aim is to get schools to trust that what we do will allow them to focus on their key business; education and the administration of schools.”

For Civica, it’s been a case of winning hearts and minds and having local people on the ground has helped, in some cases the schools still have the same technicians but they are now employed by Civica. And if you needed any proof of the sense of community that has pervaded throughout the project, James has now become a governor of one of the schools.

As for innovation, ensuring uptime at close to 100 per cent has meant that schools have been able to make technology a viable tool. James concedes that there are some things that fall outside of the scope of their contract, but contrary to popular rumour the bills are not enormous. “The bills for this are currently around £84 across the city,” concludes James.

Although James has now moved on to other projects within Civica, Andy says Sheffield’s relationship with its provider continues to be as strong as ever. Civica and Sheffield have had an excellent start to their BSF relationship and it serves as an example to all as to how effective managed service contracts can be if they are truly run in partnership.

Top tips

Listen: All parties need to listen to each other and not try to force their own solutions through. It’s about working in partnership. Your partner has to come along with ears twice as open as their mouths.
Engagement: get leadership buy-in and the right model for embedding innovation. Successful schools have knowledgeable leadership there. You don’t need to be an expert, but you do need to be able to engage and ask right questions.
Stick out for innovation: Have the right champions in school that will always push. School should engage with BSF at a pace that they can manage. The managed service has to deliver this and enable schools to make changes in an easy and flexible way.
Clarity of vision: You also need to understand how to turn that vision into a solution. Know what your own strengths are and this will help you understand what you want in a partner.
Develop relationships: There has to be mutual respect and trust, with each party having to understand the others circumstances. For example with your service provider, we all know they’re making money and that there has to be a profit margin, as long as it’s reasonable and they deliver then that should be okay.
Inspiration: Comes from how teachers use technology. Go and look at a range of schools. Yewlands, for example, uses breakout spaces and CCTV for passive supervision; it didn’t go for having hundreds of laptops on day one. Authorities need to ensure they have a system that can support a wide range of models for using ICT in schools.