Examination of Witnesses (Questions 260-279)
MR ROB
SHED, MR
BARRY WHITE,
MR MIKE
BLACKBURN, MR
MARCUS ORLOVSKY
AND MR
NICK KALISPERAS
5 JULY 2006
Q260 Chairman: What have they spent
£37 million on?
Mr Kalisperas: Developing an intranet
for children and educators in Scotland. Similarly—
Q261 Chairman: Sorry, what have they
spent it on? I can see white boards and laptops—
Mr Kalisperas: Development of
an intranet, which does not necessarily mean you need an infrastructure
within the school. You can actually use the world wide web or
the Internet to take advantage of those technologies. We are effectively
saying it is important to engage with the supplier community to
understand how technologies, such as the use of mobile devices,
the use of children perhaps working from home, accessing on-line
assessment vehicles as well, could be utilised in this programme,
and currently the way procurement is currently structured does
not allow for that level of discussion to take place with teachers,
head teachers, whoever the key decision-makers are. In the first
instance it is important for the actual customers, the people
who have the final say, to be aware of what their options are
in the technology arena, and then to base their decisions according
to their own specific needs, because we are not talking about
technology as a utility just providing infrastructure; what we
want to see is technology in this programme being used to effect
real change, and that currently is not being reflected in the
way procurements are being taken forward.
Q262 Paul Holmes: So you do not think
the system at the moment is making that happen?
Mr Kalisperas: I do not think
the way the procurement is going to be structured is going to
get the best out of the ICT community. There is a lot of creativity,
innovation, alternative approaches, that can be advance-promoted
by different companies ranging from large companies such as BT
right down to the very smallest companies who might provide innovative
niche solutions, and I think it is important for the educators
to be aware of those solutions and to be in the position where
they are able to talk to the supply community and say: "Well,
this is what I want from my school, this is how I want to approach
teachers, how can your technology help us to deliver that?"
It is not just the development of a bog standard solution but
very much viewing technology as a transformation vehicle. Too
often technology is just seen as putting your laptop on a desk
or your PC or just giving someone an e-mail account, and that
is procurement for here and now but not for the future. One of
the reasons why PFI or PPP for IT projects was scrapped was for
the very reason that you cannot predict what the technology will
do in 10 years' time. ICT does not work in that way. So why should
we basically go for a very standard solution within the consortia
approach when the technology could do so much more?
Q263 Paul Holmes: So if the Audit
Commission and CABE say that around half or more of the buildings
in the last five years have been poorly designed, physically not
fit for purpose and a bad deal, are you suggesting that nearly
all of them are poor in terms of delivering ICT?
Mr Kalisperas: I would not go
as far as that. I cannot comment on individual cases but I think
we are looking at developing a programme for schools for the future,
therefore the procurement has to be structured in such a way to
take advantage of technological development. That is not how that
procurement is currently structured at the moment. We are not
making use of the potential of technology to change the way in
which education is going to evolve in the next five or 10 years
in order for us to take advantage of ICT to assist in the development
of a better educated, better equipped school system that gives
us the sort of workers that we want in order for us to remain
globally competitive.
Q264 Paul Holmes: But you have kept
saying, "Well, we do not really know where the technology
will be in five or 10 years", so how do we design the schools
to allow for that?
Mr Kalisperas: What you do first
is you put the suppliers in front of the educators, because a
school in an inner city, for example, will have different requirements
to a school in a rural location. It is more likely that the inner
city schools will want to do things that are based around buildings
and take advantage of using the school more as an interactive
community hub, whereas a rural school may want more in terms of
distance learning and provision of those sorts of infrastructures.
What we want is basically the opportunity for members to be able
to engage much more in that first instance, before tenders are
written, so that customers, educators, have an accurate picture
of the market's capacity and capability to deliver any given solution.
What we want is basically for the education communities to really
challenge the suppliers and ask probing questions; to say: "This
is what we want from our school in the future. Can you deliver
it? If you cannot, what can you give us as a solution?" That
dialogue is something a lot of our members have said they are
not having at the moment because of the nature of the procurement
structure.
Q265 Paul Holmes: Some of the design
people we took evidence from on Monday, for example, said in quite
a short way there is a 13-week period to bid for a school and
it is not long enough to do the design, and it does not give you
time to work with the teachers and all the rest of it. In one
or two sentences, through the Select Committee and its future
Report, what would you say to the Government? What have they to
change in the contracting process to allow what you want to happen
to go ahead?
Mr Kalisperas: Allow adequate
time for consultation with the end users. Thirteen weeks is not
long enough.
Q266 Paul Holmes: So the same argument
as the design side?
Mr Kalisperas: Absolutely. Every
school is different. It will have different requirements, particularly
as it relates to the technology, and that needs to be reflected,
and for that you need a period of sustained consultation. It is
not just the time limit, it is an on-going period of consultation,
so you establish a dialogue, a genuine partnership, that results
in the sort of school that everyone can utilise and benefit from.
Q267 Chairman: Barry and Rob?
Mr White: I disagree with some
of what has been said in that our view of ICT is much more advanced
than what was judged there, and that to be successful we would
not bid on a project unless we had the right ICT partner working
with us, and we do view it much more as an inclusive solution
that allows people access within a client application from homes,
so people can use their home computers to access the school managed
learning environment, and that mobile devices are very much part
of that, and in designing our solutions we are including the requirement
that the building can support a fully wireless solution so in
years to come people can come into school with their advanced
mobile phones, or whatever other device they have, and use those
devices in the school, so we are thinking much more widely than
simply white boards and laptops. One of the major successes of
the BSF programme is that it has forced industry to look much
more widely than it has in the past, so from that point of view
we believe that the inclusion of ICT is forcing us to think differently
as part of that process. In terms of the 13-week timeline I think
that is probably under stating the amount of time typically we
have in that the whole process from starting to bid to selection
of preferred bidder typically runs for eight or nine months and
in that time there is a lot of clarification and on-going discussion.
Certainly I think it is a challenged industry to remain flexible
so we have taken our bid submission and then had further consultation
and developed it further with the stakeholders to make sure that
post that selection you get enhancements really from what was
done during the bid stage to their benefit, so I think that has
challenged industry in a way to have that flexibility and approach
so that the intensity and the bidding period is not the finish
line, and there is still a willingness to develop jointly what
was being offered.
Q268 Paul Holmes: Lastly, the Government
are keen on the new range of schools, and, indeed, old schools,
becoming extended schools open from eight in the morning till
six or later, and of course there is a big argument about having
them open at weekends and holidays for the community and so on.
Now, there is an implication for the building and management side
over 25 years because that inevitably means extra wear and tear,
and there is an implication perhaps for the ICT side. Is that
easy to accommodate or difficult from an ICT point of view to
have extended schools with twice as much usage perhaps?
Mr Orlovsky: I think the concept
of an extended school in terms of having a building where it can
be open from early until late gives flexibility for teachers to
start also looking at how they are going to flex their day in
delivering learning. I know different teaching colleagues in other
parts of the country are already experimenting with maybe moving
towards a four session day which means they need less space, which
is another way of allowing the budget to create them better overall
facilities. The concept of having an extended school and allowing
people to access those facilities when what we consider to be
a secondary school or a primary school may otherwise be closed
is laudable and should be happening and, I suppose, in most of
the offerings which we are all creating the thinking about how
all that happens be put in place. The practicalities of who pays
for what, of what is the additional cost per usable hour outside
of the costs which have been built into the unitary charge are
quite often the areas which cause a bit of a sticking point, and
we will see different authorities applying a PFI structure and
saying: "We want our core hours to be very long so we do
not have the problem of marginal pricing", and others who
have a short core hour so they can get the maximum affordability
then finding they may enter into a different negotiation on trying
to open it outside. And I think that is probably the sticking
point. The practicalities of creating a building which can do
it I think we are all pretty okay on, and I think in terms of
our responses we are all reasonably good at. Where the ICT fits
in and how we access learning opportunities to people who may
previously have been derailed in their lives or may want to pick
up again is a question of, again, who actually does that, because
quite often the schools budget and the way the schools are focused
is on the learning participants who are within their charge. The
FE college has an almost competitive element in trying to attract
learners to come there, so you end up with quite a lot of providers
vying for each other with perhaps the school having a new building
but the FE college having the new infrastructure, so how do we
resolve that? I think that is something which is probably too
much to ask the private sector who are responding to a school
building programme to try and come up with, and that is probably
back with the local authority again in what you are trying to
achieve.
Mr Kalisperas: From our perspective
I would not see a significant ICT challenge as being posed by
the extension of longer opening hours. I think that is the sort
of thing we would welcome because it encourages ICT to be used
to its full potential, using it in a variety of different ways.
Q269 Paul Holmes: What about the
lifetime of the hardware, though? Is that being built into it,
if it is going to be used for an extended range of hours?
Mr Kalisperas: In that regard
it goes back to the procurement process to make sure that contracts
are sufficiently lengthy and building things such as technology
refreshers, so those are the sorts of questions that really should
be asked pre-OJEU notice, so that is included in the tenders so
suppliers are aware that the customer is looking for a solution
which is fairly lengthy, encourages longer opening times and includes
the appropriate technology refreshers as and when at the appropriate
times.
Q270 Chairman: Mike, do you want
to come in here? A bit of what Nick has been saying to Paul is
a bit frightening, is it not, because we know what happened to
IT contracts with government departments. We only have to look
at Health and two of the inquiries we have looked at, Individual
Learning Accounts and UK e-university. Is what Nick is saying
not that you want an open-ended cheque for IT and everything else
is subsidiary?
Mr Blackburn: Look at all the
local partnerships that are going with local authorities now which
are extremely valuable. The Audit Commission looks at those and
says they are well run contracts, well run street partnerships
by a number of providers and players. You have transport, revenues
and benefits services, HR payroll services, IT, school catalogue
services—there are a number, and the locality-based services
are superb partnerships. The ones you quoted are not locality-based
services, so there is a slight difference in there.
Q271 Chairman: Was there not a real
problem with the IT contracts regarding housing benefit? They
were local, were they not?
Mr Blackburn: There are some.
That is certainly not my domain. I am thinking more about the
local partnerships where you have places like Liverpool, Rotherham,
Suffolk, Blackburn—real partnerships.
Q272 Chairman: But you are never
going to be satisfied with the amount of money in a school that
is IT, are you?
Mr Blackburn: One thing not built
into the programme is the technology refresh. It is based on a
per capita amount per pupil, and there was original consultation
right at the very start of the BSF programme talking about having
technology refresh and building it in.
Q273 Chairman: But we thought IT
was going to get cheaper year on year.
Mr Blackburn: It does get cheaper
year on year but the specification goes up, so the middle line
goes up. It is like your television; it tends to stay the same!
But PCs and other devices are not getting cheaper and cheaper.
What is happening, though, is that newer devices tend to be at
the top end of the range of prices and they will come down. Look
at DVD recorders now compared with what they were two and a half
years ago. Look at what PCs are now. I use a Blackberry but I
bet Blackberries in a few years' time and those kinds of devices
will be considerably cheaper than they are today. It is going
to come down. But that is not the mainstream stuff that goes on
within schools anyway; that is a peripheral part. In reply to
Paul, I look at the extended school in three different areas.
There is extending it for the current users, the pupils and teachers.
How do they get access from home to material? Could they have
a variety of days in a different way? Could the sixth form have
maybe certain privileges? Could study leavers do certain things
from home and get access to all their materials? My experience
so far is that the vast majority of schools know they cannot get
access very easily and tend to have to take things home on a memory
stick. The second community I look at, then, are the parents,
the governors, and those associated with the school, who also
want to be able to get access. I would love to be able to get
access to my schools where my children go, look at the curriculum,
the school work, what is going on in the school, not having to
wait for the note to come back in their bag which I never get.
So getting access that way is another way of extending the school.
Both of those have minimal, if any, nil, impact on the technology
in terms of the on-going costs of those once you put it in. The
third one, however, could have some impact, but I think, as Nick
said, it is a minor impact, like extending those for other users,
maybe for adult learners or for extra skill lessons that are going
to go on. Then yes, you might need some different devices possibly,
you certainly might need some different software, you might need
different physical people helping and supporting in those environments
as well. It probably has little or no impact on the core PC's
life expectancy by having another user banging away on the keyboard
for another couple of hours. All the devices are given the hardest
grubbing by anybody compared with business, your organisations
or our organisations. Kids beat these things up daily and they
survive, they are robust. I think there will be minimal impact
in those areas, but it might impact on areas like security.
Q274 Chairman: Can you direct us
to schools that are the most advanced? Can you and Marcus take
us to schools where you think, "That is where we are at the
moment". They may be on the cusp but the best examples?
Mr Orlovsky: Yes, I cannot think
off the top of my head, but, yes, I could. If we think back, it
was only 10 years ago when the Superhighways projects were done
and I am not sure how much we have really learned from those and
embedded it back into what is going on today. That was all about
distance learning, it was all about changing the pedagogy, changing
the teaching profession and how they go about doing things, and
looking at sustainability. I am not sure how much those lessons
have been learned. I have it very simple for you: 10% of schools
at the front end, like any other organisation, are going to be
go-getting, innovative, creative and advanced. 10% at the bottom
end are probably going to need some kind of intervention of some
sort and it is the 80% in the middle you need to move. It is the
80% where we have not taken those lessons from the Superhighways
project and others and taken those really great schools and found
out what makes them tick and can we apply them here.
Chairman: Members of the Committee really
want to be shown the very best practice because if you work with
us on this Report—a good select committee report works on
picking up on the resonance of what is out there—and if
we can add value, which is what we do—we only do it by listening
to you, being guided by you and others, written evidence and visits
and then coming up with something that can inspire other people
but also make a fist at Government—so at this stage of the
inquiry we do need for you to flag up, as far as you can this
good practice. We went to a brand new City Academy recently and
they showed us wonderful PCs and whiteboards, but if you are saying
that is not enough we want to know what the rest is, do we not?
I am looking at my colleagues. David?
Mr Chaytor: In fact, that is precisely
my line of questioning, Chairman. Is not the root of the problem
here the fact we have got on this side of the table representatives
of the IT industry, which are at the forefront of innovation,
and on this side of the table representatives of construction,
which is historically the most conservative sector with a small
"C", in the whole of British industry and business?
It is trying to reconcile these two, that seems to me the root
cause of the problem. Is that a fair comment or am I completely
off the wall?
Q275 Chairman: Maybe give a chance
to Rob and Barry to say something.
Mr Shed: I guess the answer is
that, as I mentioned earlier on, the challenge is to make it a
capital "C" not a small "C". If you look at
the example of Bristol where we have integrated the ICT requirements
into our project—and it is a consortium offering whereas
we are sat here as Skanska construction, the consortium is a Skanska
consortium—that includes an ICT provider and the consortium
is rapping the delivery risk of that ICT.
Q276 Chairman: What does that mean,
"rapping"?
Mr Shed: Taking the risk, responding
on its performance.
Q277 Mr Chaytor: The ICT people's
big complaint is that they are being squeezed out of the LEPs
and they feel that they are being steamrollered by the interests
of construction.
Mr Blackburn: Similarly in the
initial project where they have been together, there has been
a threshold of what ICTs require. Bear in mind this programme
is very much an early model, we felt, in that mode. I think things
have matured slightly since then in some respects, depending on
who you are talking with, and certainly we had dealings with Skanska,
just as Skanska are here with us today, and their people are very
open; how do you combine the best of what is over here with the
best of what is over there? There are compromises to be made when
you take the best of two things and shove them together.
Q278 Mr Chaytor: Mike, you still
stick by your submission, that the best way forward is to take
out the ICT procurement or to have separate contracts?
Mr Blackburn: I think in the majority
of cases, yes, not necessarily all though. There is a third way
as well though, there are equally some great activities already
going in local authorities today where, I mentioned before, some
of the street parties going with the local authority, there are
dozens around the country. The BSF programme is not engaging with
those wider areas and using those procured methods, contracts
or frameworks that are already out there which can get some of
these things moving today. They are not being used at all. I think
sometimes the local authority is caught between a rock and a hard
place.
Q279 Chairman: What is not being
used at all?
Mr Blackburn: The way party for
schools operate at the moment you are using an LEP to deliver
certain things which is a very prescriptive way of saying, "You
must use this framework to procure certain services". Is
an LEP always required? I do not personally think it is, no.
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