1. Essex County Council Schools Broadband Services Report by Tracey Kelsbie Contact details tracey.kelsbie@essex.gov.uk Schools Forum Agenda Item 12 Date: 22 nd October 2014

2. Background 1. Purpose of report The purpose of the report is to provide the summary of the value for money report for Schools Forum. 2. Recommendations We continue with our current supplier (DUCL). Education are currently reviewing the pricing structure for charging both LA controlled schools and academies for 2015/16 and report back to Schools Forum in December. 3. Background In the schools forum meeting it was agreed that the centralised funding for schools broadband would be accepted for 2014/15 and supplementary information would be provided to schools forum which would include a value for money benchmarking report for schools broadband. Following is a summary of the report. 2

3. Value for Money Report Summary Current Service Packaged Offerings for the Essex Schools Broadband Service Internet Service Provision (10mb Primary/Special and 100Mb Secondary Internet filtering to PAS74 standard and age appropriate services Transparent Proxy Internet Filtering Service Virus Protection for School Equipment Domain Name Services (DNS) Simple Message Transport system with spam protection (SMTP) Firewall Services – To protect schools from the Internet Public IP Address management for school services Connection to JAnet service for education Video Conferencing Core service Web Hosting for school websites Secure Connectivity to Essex Council Services for schools Secure Encrypted Backup system for finance and confidential data Helpdesk support 24x7 and automated monitoring of the network Fully Managed Service for Schools 3

4. Benchmarking Control Criteria Schools Selected Primary School Rural Great Sampford Primary Finchingfield Road Great Sampford Essex Primary School Urban White Court School Ennerdale Avenue Great Notley Braintree 4 Secondary School Davenant Foundation School Chester Road Loughton Essex Special School Marketfield School School Road Elmstead Market Colchester

5. Current Price Breakdown 5 The service provided to the school is a 10Mb Internet service complete with all of the options detailed on the Current Service Offerings Slide. 107 Pupils Cost DUCL: £10,584 Alternative 3 rd Party Supplier : £11,778

6. Current Price Breakdown 6 The service provided to the school is a 10Mb Internet service complete with all of the options detailed on the Current Service Offerings Slide. 588 Pupils Cost DUCL: £3,928 Alternative 3rd Party Supplier: £6,702

7. Current Price Breakdown 7 The service provided to the school is a 100Mb Internet service complete with all of the options detailed on the Current Service Offerings Slide. 1168 Pupils Cost DUCL: £17,249 Alternative 3rd Party Supplier: £17,413 Davenant Foundation School

8. Current Price Breakdown 8 The service provided to the school is a 10Mb Internet service complete with all of the options detailed on the Current Service Offerings Slide. 185 Pupils Cost DUCL: £4,203.76 Alternative 3rd Party Supplier: £6,702 Marketfield School

9. 9 Conclusion To highlight some of the major benefits that schools receive from this Service : Value for Money for this service when compared to an alternative 3 rd Party Supplier; Dedicated schools helpdesk focused on first time fix with experienced staff over a wide range of services; Strict SLAs for response and fix times; A private network with little contention; 2 x resilient data centres providing mission critical access to the internet and hosted services; 99.99% availability proven track record; Focused account management and marketing resource e.g. termly newsletters; Excellent security with yearly security penetration testing conducted to protect schools; Economies of scale to provide advanced technologies to schools. Next Steps:- Presentation to the Schools Forum Meeting In December to seek funding for 15/16; Review of service package to potentially remove little used services (Video Conferencing) and provision Alternative services being requested by schools (Cloud back-ups).