RM Education awarded new contract for Dudley Grid for Learning (DGfL3)

Following an extremely rigorous procurement process, Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council awarded RM Education a ground breaking new 10 year contract for Dudley Grid for Learning (DGfL3). DGfL3 commenced in February 2011 with 108 schools in Dudley (over 98%) participating in the service. RM Education delivers all the curriculum ICT needs and a comprehensive range of services that are shared across all schools and the Local Authority.

Wide range of technical and educational services available

DGfL3 schools share the following services which are delivered by RM Education:

Cloud Services - private cloud hosted applications such as MIS, Portal and Identity Management
Technical Services - a fully managed technical support service incorporating training and consultancy for all schools
Educational Services - working with schools to create and deliver an ICT vision, strategic ICT advice, e-safety consultancy, supporting schools to achieve the ICT mark or 360 degree safe accreditation and enabling schools to make the most of their ICT investments
An Innovation Centre in Dudley that schools can use to try out new technologies and their use in the curriculum
Security consultancy including data security services and training
Special Educational Needs consultancy - to engage and motivate SEN pupils, whether in mainstream education or in one of Dudley's 7 special schools
Personal device scheme - enabling parents and carers to make small regular payments to provide their child with access to a personal device for use in school or at home. This enables true anytime anywhere learning, and encourages families that have previously had no access to ICT to engage with their child's education and develop new skills themselves.

"When selecting a partner to work with us on the delivery of DGfL3, it was vital that they shared our vision. We wanted someone who supported our thinking, who we could work with creatively to deliver innovative services and technology solutions to our schools. With RM Education we are fortunate to have a partner who understands the unique and often complex needs of education and is prepared to take the risk in achieving challenging education targets."

– Shirley Hackett, Senior Education Advisor, Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council

A contract based on achieving improved outcomes for pupils and teachers

From its inception in 1999, DGfL has consistently set out to deliver educational outcomes supported by safe, reliable and best value technology. It was the first UK educational ICT project to include payments to its partners based on educational impact; and it has provided a benchmark for good practice that has fed into the thinking of many educational initiatives in the last 12 years. Above all, it has learning outcomes, changes in teaching practice and improved educational standards as its focus. DGfL3 is rooted in developing the partnership with schools in the Authority to deliver Dudley's vision that by 2025, all learners in the Borough will be 'ambitious, confident and committed to learning' as their route to high achievement.

The contractual educational impact measures (against which RM Education is assessed) include year on year improvements in attainment at KS2 and KS4, staff e-confidence, staff development, usage of ICT applications, parental engagement and uptake of the personal device scheme.

Creating value for money through reduced risk and economies of scale

DGfL3 was procured during a time of major change including: a new Government, the structure and role of Local Authorities, the strategy for Academies, the termination of the BSF programme, and above all in a climate of unprecedented economic austerity. Dudley MBC therefore had to create a partnership with a supplier that not only delivers their educational outcomes but also meets challenging financial criteria.

"RM Education's understanding of the very particular requirements of the education sector has enabled it to develop a genuine partnership with the Local Authority and individual schools. This is of special importance when challenges arise, as they inevitably do in a contract as complex as ours. We have found that with openness and flexibility on all sides we can reach solutions which have the learners rather than the contract at their core."

– Geoff Baker, DGfL Head of Service, Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council

Partnering with RM Education

Partnership working between Dudley MBC and RM Education has enabled significant financial benefits to be achieved in DGfL3. Extending the scope and nature of the shared services has been the primary vehicle for the delivery of economies of scale, risk reduction and therefore increased value for money. Examples of these are:

Value for money	Risk reduction
Combining Dudley Council and School Wide Area Networks into a single shared service has allowed a more resillient service with increased bandwidth to be delivered to schools at no extra cost	Reducing the number of data centres and single points of failure by co-locating RM Education's servers within the Council's new facility
Delivering core applications via the cloud, avoiding the need to implement additional servers in schools	Creating an open-book, fixed price outcomes driven contract that allows RM Education and Dudley the opportunity to deliver improvements and efficiencies over the contract period
Extending the life of exisiting assests by reusing legacy drives in a thin client architecture	Working with schools' own technicians to develop their skills and empowering them as important resources with the service
RM Education provides at least 2 apprenticeship places per year in DGFl3 to create employment to Dudley's young people	Best of breed reviews and full benchmarking to ensure that Dudley's schools get state of the art services to best value prices

Next Steps

To find out how Managed Services from RM Education could save you 20% or more on
operational costs and improve the ICT experience for learners and teachers, contact us
via www.rmeducation.com/managedservices