UK schools need a standardised approach to management information systems (MIS) to get better value for money, according to an education sector development agency.

The British Education, Communications and Technology Agency (Becta) is to negotiate a national framework of contract terms and conditions and interoperability standards to open up the market, improve the quality of MIS software, and take away some of the technical burden from schools.

The education MIS market is worth an estimated £180m a year across the country's 23,000 schools, providing the systems used for schools' internal administration. But innovation and quality of service are being stifled by lack of competition, says a report published by Becta last week.

At the moment, the market is largely dominated by a single supplier - Capita Education Services (CES). Centrally-brokered framework deals would help free schools from some of the complexity of European Union procurement rules, and establish a list of accredited, interoperable suppliers, the report says.

Consultation with schools and local education authorities (LEAs) established clearly that it is not efficient for individual organisations to be negotiating their own contractual terms, says Stephen Lucey, Becta's executive director for education technology.

'Certain things can be done effectively nationally, such as setting interoperability standards, quality of service levels, and terms and conditions which then means that schools and LEAs can buy with confidence,' he said.

'Service levels at the moment are not what they need to be.

'Standard contracts will improve the situation because schools will start off with a number of the more technical issues already dealt with, so they can focus on using the technology rather than having to worry about it,' he said.

Of the £180m total annual spend in the MIS market, about £55m is spent on support, says Becta. Another key recommendation to improve value for money is for schools to share support services across local areas.

The agency is also recommending a dialogue between the government and MIS suppliers to help software upgrades meet the changing requirements of central government.

Every year, schools are required to submit statutory information such as attendance numbers and budget details to the Department for Education and Skills. But if the department does not specify changes to the data required in time for MIS suppliers to develop the necessary upgrades to systems, schools are left with problem software and extra costs.

'The education sector needs a national system that provides data to support schools in terms of their learning and teaching, to support the requirements of LEAs, and to support the national government in tracking progress,' said Lucey.

Becta is recommending the development of a Memorandum of Understanding between the government and MIS suppliers to establish clear timescales for changes to the department's data requirements, and to ensure the costs of upgrades are in future met by the government rather than schools.

Ultimately, the aim is for MIS technology to allow real-time transfer of data rather than a single annual snapshot, says Lucey.

'We want to move to a position where data can be transferred from schools to other agencies in terms of, for example, childrens' services, or parents who require knowledge of how their children are getting on. We cannot afford for that to be two or three weeks old,' he said.

James Adams, senior analyst at Datamonitor, says there has been concern for some time among schools and LEAs that they are not getting the best deal.

'There is one dominant supplier and there is not really any competition,' he said.
But centrally-negotiated contractual terms are not necessarily the solution, says Adams.

'As soon as a contractual relationship with suppliers is established, it automatically closes the door on anyone not able to invest massive amounts of money, because the cost of entering the market is so high,' he said.

'The government needs to reduce the barriers to entry so that having a more formalised process for negotiations between government and suppliers does not reduce costs, but increases them.'