SMART Academy Trust: Integrated Communications and Managed Service Partner

SMART was established in 2016 from its initial inception at Wyndam Primary School. The Trust is a family of 8 inclusive and aspirational schools working together within a Multi-Academy Trust.

The ICT is currently provided by Newcastle City Council (NCC). NCC provide all the communications and online service as part of the schools WAN. NCC also provide a managed service to all the schools. The contract for Broadband ends on the 20th August 2022 The contract for all managed services ceases on the 24th August 2022.

In essence, this procurement is all about identifying a single supplier for the Trusts to contract with who will provide a package of services relating to Communications and a full managed service comprising the equipment and operational service of their full in school ICT Solution, under a single Contract and SLA. At the sole discretion of the Trust any future schools that the Trust may incorporate into the Trust will also be added to the ICT contract. Any additional schools will co-terminate to the end same end date of the initial contract.

Further details regarding timescales are noted below but in summary this is advertised as a maximum 68 month service with start and end dates as follows:

• Contract start date - 1st December 2021
• Service start date - As soon as possible after the contractual start date
• Service end date - 31st July 2027

Bidders should assume that the ITT will include, but not be limited to;

• Strategic advice and direction to the Trust regarding ICT
• A managed WAN service to connect schools anywhere in England
• A broadband service for each school based on synchronous connectivity
• A 'failover' line
• A firewalled service
• Filtering of Trust owned devices away from schools eg staff / pupil laptops
• An Education compliant internet filtering service
• Reporting of online activity service to support Safeguarding
• Inter-site connectivity facility as necessary
• A Managed VoIP telephony service for each school to an agreed number of handsets each (Optional)
• Full end to end single SLA approach
• Management of any 3rd parties required to provide the service
• Relevant monitoring, management and reporting
• Full installation and transition service
• Single service desk
• Support and maintenance service
• 42 week local staffing that bidders deem necessary to deliver the SLA
• Responsibility for design, specification, installation and management of all ICT infrastructure
• Supply of goods and services based on an agreed Best Value (BV) approach
• Management of 3rd parties
• Relevant monitoring, management, patching and reporting
• Training - technical and curriculum as necessary
• Expectation that the provider will drive innovation
• Risk registers and inventory management
• Website Hosting
• Collective partnership targets