UK competition watchdog probes school software contract revisions
- Reference: 1651060813
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/04/27/uk_competition_watchdog_probes_school/
- Source link:
Education Software Solutions told schools in November that it was [1]ending the option of a one-year contract for MIS and was instead creating a minimum three-year deal for the previous SIMS Annual Entitlement Plan.
Some schools responded negatively and saw the revision as an attempt to lock them into longer-term deals. The [2]Department for Education advised all schools to "pause" before signing new agreements as it investigated the revision but [3]reportedly changed policy in December, telling them to buy as normal.
[4]
ESS told us in November that lengthier agreements are "standard practise" and that SIMS had been "very much the anomaly" in the sector. The new agreement, for schools that chose to select them, kicked off April 1.
[5]
[6]
The market share for ESS SIMS' MIS was between 70 to 80 percent when it was sold by Capita to Montague Private Equity in [7]December 2020 for £400m . This was down from between 80 to 90 percent in 2017.
The investigation by the CMA, [8]launched today , will assess if schools were given sufficient time to review their options, "such as moving to an alternative supplier instead of renewing with ESS for the full three years."
[9]
Most state schools in Britain are required to have MIS, used to manage student information including attendance and safeguarding. The selection process for choosing an MIS is "often lengthy and can involve complex procurement steps," said the CMA.
[10]Users sound off as new Google Workspace for Education storage limits near
[11]Back to school for Microsoft as it prises apart the repairable Surface Laptop SE
[12]Academics horrified that administration of Turing student exchange scheme outsourced to Capita
[13]UK schools slap a hold on facial scanning of children amid fierce criticism
The CMA will consider the relevant issues, along with concerns raised by schools, and may impose interim measures on the ESS contracts as the investigation is conducted. Pricing of some ESS product packages will also feature, specifically whether the MIS was sold alongside financial management wares and if this deterred schools from moving to a new supplier.
"We have heard concerns regarding ESS's contract changes," said Ann Pope, senior director of antitrust at the CMA. "Thousands of schools rely on management information systems and their choice of supplier should not be restricted. The duration of the ESS contract has been significantly extended and schools should be able to pick the best provider for their needs."
ESS has introduced a six-month break clause in the contract but "some schools tell us this is still not enough time. A formal investigation will allow us time to consider this matter properly," Pope added.
A spokesperson at ESS sent us a statement:
[14]
"ESS believes it has acted properly at all times and has constructively addressed the CMA's concerns.
"We are confident that when the CMA completes its information gathering it will reach the same conclusions." It added, "ESS looks forward to engaging with the CMA as it conducts its investigation over the coming weeks." ®
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[1] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/16/education_software_solutions/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/19/department_for_education_ess_delay/
[3] https://schoolsweek.co.uk/400-schools-sign-up-to-take-collective-action-against-sims/
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YmlosMkEZ6bE3eRW0VTqTAAAAUc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YmlosMkEZ6bE3eRW0VTqTAAAAUc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YmlosMkEZ6bE3eRW0VTqTAAAAUc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2020/12/14/capita_sells_ess_to_montagu/
[8] https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/investigation-into-conduct-of-education-software-solutions-limited
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YmlosMkEZ6bE3eRW0VTqTAAAAUc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/10/google_workspace_storage_policy/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/11/surface_laptop_se/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/09/capita_turing_scheme/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/26/uk_schools_canteen_facial_recog/
[14] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YmlosMkEZ6bE3eRW0VTqTAAAAUc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[15] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Sims competitors Bromcom iSams and Arbour are gaining huge market share chunks currently from all the schools that jumped shit at this contract change and before. They are all modern cloud based systems with excellent development
Capita (and now ESS) on the other hand outsourced their development to india and ended up in a terrible mess because of it with a legacy product filled with techincal debt. Nobody knows how to fix it and starting again is the only real option. Sadly ESS have decided to "build on top" of Sims like an upside down pyramid of code. Never a good idea but they still don't seem to have anyone. Their new cloud product appears to be a remote desktop server connection over HTML. Just pointless...
Sims has no real cloud product at all and the companies behind it have failed to invest in Sims for years, just milking the monopoly they had. It's essentially their kodak moment and the private equity firm who bought it will pay the price for poor due dilligence.
We looked at Arbor a few years back, it was too early to move at the time because it was missing a good few features then.
I'll have another look this year as our support provider School ICTS also support Arbor now
I used iSAMS at my last job for a couple of years, I thought it was mostly tied to the Independent sector, do they do a state school version?
It's a decent package, but I think you need a DBA on staff to handle the reporting
Education?
" ESS told us in November that lengthier agreements are "standard practise" "
And they can't spell, despite being in education support. The word they wanted was 'practice'.
The simple fact is, SIMS is crap, but so are most of the others.
We know this, they know this, but you're locked in, because changing MIS is an absolute ball ache.
So much of the school operation is tied to your MIS - admissions, registration, timetable, behaviour management, HR, payroll (for some), even document storage - and you can't just switch package without a huge investment in time and money for training new staff.
It certainly is a big job moving MIS systems. The lock in doesn't really come from the ballache of switching, rather ESS gave their customers 6 months to move or pay a higher support/maintenance fee and get locked in for 3 years... I guess they knew that their main competitors (Bromcom/Arbor) have a 12 month backlog of Schools waiting for implementation date, due to the mass of Schools who want to move off sims asap.
From a social POV... Bastards! These are Schools who have no money, trying to educate our children, and ESS does this. Almost as bad as the Tory government stripping Schools of funding
From a evil business POV... May be a good strategy if the CMA doesn't haul them over the coals, they invest enough cash to out develop Bromcom/Arbor in 2 years time, and do a great job on the charm offensive to repair their reputation.... Lets see how that one goes :-d
Funny thing is, 3 year contracts are not standard
Most of the other companies have their MIS solutions listed on the GCloud 12 procurement framework site. Which awards 2 year contracts, with options for 2 1 year extensions at the wish of the customer.
At least 1 of their competitors is explicitly advertising 1 year contracts as well.
So, where they got the idea that 3 year contracts are standard from is a mystery.
Market share...
So, they have between 70% and 80% market share and yet they claim ESS told us in November that lengthier agreements are "standard practise" and that SIMS had been "very much the anomaly" in the sector.
That market share means that others would have been the anomaly if they were only offering multi-year contracts (single year contracts may be a major factor in why they have had that level of market share).
The PR droids aren't very good at logical reasoning.