Building schools for the future

LEAs face a plethora of initiatives – some education-specific, such as Building Schools for the Future (BSF), and other broader initiatives such the Children’s Agenda driving joined up delivery between agencies, Gershon and the growing impact of legislation such as the Freedom of Information Act.

Much of the change is expected to be ‘transformational’. Demands for online schools admissions for example, requiring LEAs to have a clear vision and strategy. There is often an assumption, in BSF in particular, that managed services will be used. Schools, meanwhile, are expecting ever-increasing autonomy, which potentially militates against data integration and economies of scale. Changes at the ‘chalk face’ pose other challenges. New methods of delivering curriculum and managing learning place huge demands on infrastructure; even ‘overspecified’ networks may rapidly run short of bandwidth.

If PFI partnerships are used to fund infrastructure, the time lags involved can be such that the capacity can be outgrown even before it goes live. Socitm Consulting can help with:

• Developing ICT strategies
• Specifying user requirements for education in ICT
• Procurement support including bid appraisal
• Recruitment of technical specialists and interim managers
• Partnership development
• Interfacing between design and build FM and PFI and ICT
• Fostering joint working between schools and other services for children
• Supplier management, performance monitoring and benchmarking performance management.
• Developing energy efficient buildings and ICT operations that automatically power down systems that are not in use

Examples of recent projects include: