Capita IT Services has used the experience of its recently acquired organisations; Synetrix, Ramesys and Carillion IT Services to deliver managed connectivity services to Local Authorities and RBC’s as well as infrastructure, consultancy, training and support services in schools and colleges to launch a new suite of flexible and modular technology services designed to meet education customers’ needs.
Capita has recognised the need for schools and colleges to have greater freedom, choice and flexibility in the services that they use. For many years we’ve been helping our customers to achieve more with less and these developments recognise the changes in legislation and ICT funding which have followed the Comprehensive Spending Review. Against this background we feel that this is the ideal time for us to make our ICT solutions available direct to the end user in individual institutions.
This move will enable schools to introduce greater flexibility and utilise tools which support teaching and learning to drive educational attainment.
Our services provide a complete end-to-end ‘wrap’ in terms of ICT and people and will be available to individual institutions and federations / authorities alike. They include:
- Up to the schools front door ISP services - such as Broadband connectivity and onward access to the national education network, e-safety services (URL Filtering and Anti Virus), web hosting, single sign-on and identity management.
- Content management and learning application services - through the highly acclaimed OPENHIVE platform which includes a radically different approach to providing:
- Inside the institution infrastructure and support services - including server and user access device refresh, a secure way of enabling ‘bring your own device’ for staff and students, a flexible and modular approach to providing support for the technology and a range of options in respect of how to pay for these technology services, including per user rental models which can make your ICT an entirely revenue based model without capital expenditure if you so choose.
These services will enable schools to introduce greater flexibility and utilise tools that support teaching and learning to drive educational attainment.
The first of these two services are available immediately - the third element will be available after April 2011.
At the heart of the new approach is our commitment to moving into the area of ‘Cloud Computing Services’, but not in a one-size-fits-all manner; but by starting with education, not technology and learning the lessons from our involvement in BSF and RBCs.
Why is this new approach needed?
The education sector is currently looking at a future characterised by:
- Significant cuts in education capital expenditure.
- The loss of the Harnessing Technology Grant and the redistribution of several specialist/target funds.
- The need to reduce operational expenditure on ICT itself and to reduce other revenue costs - such as the cost of electricity, driven by both the green agenda and the increased power demands generated by rapidly expanding ICT estates and the increasing need for comfort cooling / mechanical ventilation and even air conditioning in areas of high concentrations of ICT.
- Greater autonomy and freedom for the leaders of the institutions themselves.
- The end of BSF - many schools requiring major ICT investment in the immediate future will not now come via this route.
- There being winners and losers as a result of the new funding arrangements and redistribution of what were formerly specialist and targeted grants, with more funding will following the pupil (e.g. Pupil Premium).
As a result, schools and colleges will need integrated ICT solutions which are:
- Cost effective and flexible enough to support different contexts, innovation & transformation.
- Applicable to any kind of establishment: primary, secondary and special; from Free Schools, Academies (both the familiar new build and new style), community Schools and independent schools to larger scale federations and colleges.
The Capita IT Services approach is based on:
- Keeping the amount of server equipment required in the school or college to a minimum.
- Avoiding ‘sunk costs’ in over-specified equipment.
- Centralised delivery of ‘software as a service’ and ‘infrastructure as a service’ - moving as many services as possible out of individual establishments and into what has become known as ‘the cloud’.
- Flexibility - to scale across institution types and in terms of ‘options’ to add to the core service.
- A refresh of user access devices and the enablement of a secure ‘Bring Your Own Device’ (BYOD) solution.
- A set of modular support service to meet the very different needs of the different customer types.
- A range of financial options from traditional capital expenditure to a ‘per user’ rental model with a clear structure and with customers paying only for the services and capacity they require.
Capita has the full range of capability to deliver these services, with a large number staff highly skilled in providing:
- Wide Area Networks, Local Area Networks and Learning Platforms, with a strong track record in software as a service through Openhive.
- Integration of ICT into building design & construction and associated areas like M&E services, FF&E and FM.
- Programme and project management.
- Engineering - implementation & training.
- Consultancy services - educational and ICT consultancy.
- Support and managed services - on-site & remote support staff, Service Desks and Continuous Improvement.
- Other parts of the Capita Group with complementary skills - in Children’s Services (SIMS), Strategic Children’s Services, Capita Symonds, Capita Learning & Development and others.
So what does this all mean?
Today, a typical secondary school may have more than 15 servers in place - whilst primary schools have fewer but similar needs. By applying Cloud Computing models, Infrastructure and Software as a Service (IaaS & SaaS) we can reduce this number of in-school boxes to a minimum. In particular, we are focused on centralising the really complex services and supporting them remotely - such as MIS, Backup, e-safety applications etc. This means there is no need for the school or college to refresh these expensive components or support them in-house, as long as it chooses to remain in the service. This lowers what has become known as the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and is better environmentally - lowering power consumption and heat output.
Schools and colleges use many different applications, some of which are critical to teaching & learning, others are key to communication and collaboration and some are administration and management focused, but even these are becoming critical to personalised learning and to the home-school partnership, in respect of pupil tracking and informing/engaging parents. By applying SaaS techniques Capita can deliver and support these applications from the cloud without the school losing control and some will stay in school, depending on what’s the right thing to do educationally. Those applications which are moved to a SaaS environment will be kept up to date for long as the customer chooses to remain in the service, so there will be no need for software maintenance or upgrades on these ‘centralised’ applications.
User access device technology is changing very rapidly too. This can make innovation hard to afford if you are committed to constant capital expenditure, particularly in the current climate. Our service therefore includes a partial refresh of the user access devices as well as the servers in the first 2 years of every 3 the customer commits to which means most up to date equipment can be drip fed into the school. We will also enable BYOD which will allow staff and students to bring their own devices into school and make use of them without risk to the network and it’s more than just airport-style wireless access; they’ll be able to access files and print to local printers.
From the outset our education customers will l be able to choose what support options they require (over and above the need for us to support the cloud based elements, which is already included in the package) and again, our approach is modular and flexible with four levels and optional extras available in each level. It’s a joined up story - with each of the services closely aligned with the others; something that Capita with its breadth and depth of capability is uniquely placed to do.
If you’d like to discuss these services in more detail please contact us.