TGE Solutions Ltd

The Redhill Academy Trust - Case Study

Redhill Academy Trust enjoys significant savings, improved communication efficiency and user experience as a result of the Multi Academy Trust Telecoms and Broadband Strategy Planning and Procurement Services provided by TGE Solutions.

Key points:

• Cost savings achieved of £76,000 per year
• Faster broadband with increased resilience
• New phone systems improve internal and external communications
• Schools are future proofed for the BT Network Switch Off
• Phone systems, firewalls and web filtering can be managed centrally by the Trust IT team

“Our initial concern was the BT Network Switch off; on the face of it, this was going to be a large disruption to most of our schools, and we did not have the resources internally to help us through this. An initial internal investigation told us how much we were spending on these areas, but it wasn’t until we engaged the team at TGE that we fully understood the scale of the financial and operational benefits that we could achieve as part of an improvement program. As part of TGE’s consulting exercise, we gained much more insight into how we could exploit telecoms technology. Additionally, the move onto SIP trunks allowed for a rationalisation and enabled significant annual cost savings. Finally, the work by TGE acted as a trigger to rationalise our inter-school communications. TGE were a pleasure to work with, and their work has brought significant benefits to our Trust.”  Chris Burkill, ICT Strategy Manager

Challenge - The Redhill Academy Trust consists of ten secondary schools and five primary schools, each of the schools in the Trust had historically procured their own telecoms and broadband contracts. As a result, over 20 different suppliers provided services and products to their schools. The pricing and contracts for broadband, mobiles, phone system maintenance, phone line rentals and call charges varied greatly across the schools. No two schools had the same phone system installed and the majority were working on old technology. This led to problems communicating internally and with parents.

The Solution - It was important to audit all the schools in the Trust to ascertain what products and services were in place and how much they were paying. The audits established what phone systems were installed, their age, the type of phone lines and what contracts were in place, plus maintenance and line rental costs and call charges. Similar analysis was conducted for each school’s mobile and broadband contracts. Once the data had been analysed, reports were prepared by TGE Solutions for each of the schools. The reports provided the foundation for advising the Trust on the options available that would improve communications, streamline the number of suppliers, and save money. A single Broadband supplier and contract was a key recommendation in order to reduce costs. In addition, the Trust IT team would only have one supplier to deal with and the same firewall and web filtering solutions to manage across all the schools. A similar recommendation was made for mobile contracts. Consolidating all mobiles onto a single contract would reduce costs, provide greater control of which staff should be allocated mobiles through a centrally managed contract and improve accountancy efficiency. Finally, the Trust was advised to look at implementing a phone system solution that could be rolled out to all schools when their existing contracts came to an end. This would improve communications internally and with parents, reduce costs and ensure that all schools were prepared for the BT Network Switch Off. As part of the Phone System Procurement Service, line rentals, calls and maintenance contracts were consolidated resulting in annual savings of over £60,000.

Procurement - Firstly, TGE Solutions entered a consultation period with the Trust. This advised them of the pros and cons, plus pricing for installing a centralised phone system, a hosted phone system, Microsoft Teams and individual networked systems that would be installed in each of the schools. It was then decided that the best solution for the Trust was to procure phone systems that would be installed into each of the schools that would be networked to provide one large Trust wide phone system. This solution provided the schools with greater resiliency, the lowest total cost of ownership and improved communications. It also enabled the schools to replace their phone systems at a time that suited them rather than all schools having to change at the same time. To kick start the phone system procurement project, system design meetings were held with each school, this enabled TGE Solutions to advise on the features and benefits that the new solution would bring and then design a specification that was right for each school. Once the system designs were completed the tender documentation was written by TGE Solutions and issued to companies that could deliver a project of this nature. Each tender response was reviewed and a detailed report prepared including information on the companies and their proposed products. Pricing tables enabled the schools and the Trust to compare the initial system purchase and installation price, ongoing costs for line rentals, call charges and maintenance and the total cost of ownership over 5 years. The reports plus further consultation enabled the Trust to decide which companies should be shortlisted and finally which company should be awarded the contract.

Benefits - The Trust’s new centrally procured broadband contract delivers faster broadband speeds along with additional backup lines that provide improved resiliency at each school. The new firewall and web filtering solutions can also be managed centrally by the Trust ICT team. The new phone system solution enables any member of staff to be contacted from any location by dialling their extension number. The addition of mobile apps enables key employees to make and receive calls through the phone system regardless of their location using their mobile phones. A range of new features such as voicemail to email, call recording and lockdown paging has brought multiple benefits ranging from improving the way in which they communicate with parents to the safeguarding of pupils and staff. The phone systems are all future-proofed against the BT Network Switch Off and can be managed centrally by the Trust ICT team. Following the telecoms and broadband projects the Trust now benefits from cost savings of £76k per annum.