ST Aidan’s Catholic Academy Trust
Service Specification – ICT Support Services
Outline Requirements
The service provider will be responsible for the operation, maintenance, development and
management of the Academy data and telecommunications infrastructure and associated
network services including electronic mail, remote access (virtual private network), wireless
networking, printing, network security, user account registration, data storage and backup.
It is envisaged that the service provider will carry these duties through a mixture of on-site
and remote access.
For clarity, please note that the service provider will not be responsible for;
 Monitoring of network availability
 Monitoring of server availability, disk capacity, storage performance and capacity
management.
 Utilisation of critical network interfaces
 Throughput of network and capacity management
 Incident management related to server failure/storage /capacity issues/core switch
fail or SAN issues.
 Network Failure alarms
 Configuration management system and configuration of backup and restore.
The above tasks are the responsibility of a third party provider and the service
provider will be expected to work closely with this partner for the benefit of the Trust.
St Aidan’s Academy core network consists of the cabling and wireless infrastructure,
interbuilding links, links to external networks and the equipment on which the network
operates. In general, we require the service provider to work with the third party provider to
provide and support equipment across the whole academy; helping with the design and
implementation of local networking equipment if required, and adding equipment to our
monitoring systems in order to get notification of problems.
Also to work with the third party provider on network security, perimeter firewall, liaise with
external providers and investigate misuse and breaches of security or copyright. The Third
Party will remain responsible for the serve infrastructure as outlined in there service level
agreement; work should not be initialised on the server/infrastructure hardware without the
permission of the Third Party provider. The Third Party provide a helpdesk support service
as part of the SLA to enable this to happen.
It is envisaged that the service provider will provide the tasks in this document through a
mixture of on-site and remote services. The service provider should aim to provide a balance
of responsiveness and cost efficiency.
Helpdesk Service
To develop and provide a helpdesk service that provides staff and students with a
primary point of contact for enquiries regarding IT and services. The helpdesk will
provide first-line technical support in respect of the services outlined in this document.
The service responsibilities include registering users, dealing with workstation room
bookings, maintaining and supplying up-to-date documentation and maintaining
centralised records for equipment, and software licenses.
The service will provide help, advice, training and support in the use of all centrally
maintained IT services.
The helpdesk staff will refer queries to the relevant person and ensure the appropriate
response within a given time scale need targets for resolution.
Category
1
2
3
4
Target for helpdesk response
Definition
Response time
User accounts and
passwords
Internet including
wireless/email
issues/printing
Workstation Failure
Information
management
systems
failure/BLOXX/VPN
Additional
Information
15 minutes
30 minutes
60 minutes
60 minutes: initial
investigation and
proposed outcome.
Note: this depends
on the nature of the
failure but a given
time scale for
correction should be
given by the IT team
after investigation
The helpdesk will be available during the following times (Core Hours)
Term Time (39 weeks)
Monday to Friday
7.30am to 6:00pm during term time
Outside term time
Summer holidays (6 weeks) - Monday to Friday 9:00am to 6:00pm
Christmas 2 week holiday - No standard service required
Half term (3x1 week) and Easter (2 weeks) - Partial cover to be provided over the
other half term breaks but not necessary to be onsite as long as contact with a
helpline is available should an issue arise.
Authentication and authorisation (user account provisioning)
The service provider will be responsible for managing and overseeing the active
directory and for implementing appropriate housekeeping routines. This would include
adding new user accounts and removing old user accounts; disabling passwords and
accounts of students and staff who have left the Academy. Perform yearly maintenance
of the Active Directory ensuring all entries are in a correct format and up to date.
The service provider will provide and maintain a computer account (and username and
password) to all users. This provides access to electronic facilities such as e-mail, PC
workstations, Ebackpack, and other electronic resources.
The Trust will inform the service provider of all accounts creation/deletion/amendment.
The service provider will action the request within 15 minutes of request.
The standard format for provision should be followed in all cases across the academy.
An entitlement of access chart should be maintained which indicates the services each
category of user will receive. This should be completed in liaison with SIMS/data
managers in the Academy.
Wireless and Mobile Computing
The service provider will need to support a variety of services allowing remote access to
facilities and the user of personal equipment (BYOD).
The wireless network covers most of the teaching and open access public areas of
the site and, with wired ports in teaching rooms, allows connection via a network access
management system to protect the Academy network and other users from poorly
managed devices. Wireless users, and staff and students working from home, may use
the Virtual Private Network (VPN) to connect to the Academy network allowing access to
network file shares, remote connection to staff PCs.
The service provider will utilise existing systems to monitor access points and pass
details of issues to the third party provider who is responsible for the hardware and
access points.
Consumables
The helpdesk will also mange consumables such as CDs & USB drives, credit user
printer accounts, maintain documentation and training materials, and provide access to
scanners and portable hardware for short-term loan to staff.
Email
The staff/Student email service is based upon Microsoft Exchange with Microsoft
Outlook and Outlook Web Access the recommended email clients. Other elements of the
email infrastructure include secure access on mobile device.
The service provider will support and monitor the existing electronic mailbox on central
servers
Desktop Support to Professional and Administrative Departments
The service provider will recommend, install and support desktop computing equipment
and peripherals for staff in the Professional and Administrative Departments, enabling
access to all applications and use of general (and appropriate specialist) office software.
Managed Support to School
While IT developments remain funded by the Academy, the service provider should
support standards and practices to cover departmental equipment where appropriate,
provision of peer support to the member/s of staff dedicated to provide IT support to the
Academy. Advise the Academy Trust in producing an ICT strategy.
Web (institutional websites, intranets, VPN and web content management system
(BLOXX))
The technical maintenance and development of central web facilities, which include the
Academy’s public site and intranets, administration of central web servers, roll-out of the web
content management system, and support for various web-enabled applications in use within
the Academy for teaching and learning, administration and marketing.
The service provider should ensure secure web services for all users through the monitoring
and evaluation of BLOXX and weekly user reports generated through BLOXX; these should
be passed to myself each Friday with recommendations.
The team should also work with our third party provider to ensure VPN is secure and
available to staff, analysing data and usage to ensure suitable VPN coverage is available;
presently 25 licences.
The school website and Intranet should be available at all times (98% minimum target) The
IT team should preform regular usage checks to ensure availability.
Virtual learning environment (Ebackpack)
The service provider will provide a central service offering advice, training and support
on the use of Ebackpack as a workflow model- including user account provision and
password change.
In addition to the provider should assist with the dissemination of best practice in the use
of learning technology by organising workshops, demonstrations and seminars on
eLearning topics of potential interest to Academy staff, working with Schools to monitor
student IT literacy, providing training in core IT skills for students, and supporting Schoolbased eLearning initiatives.
Service provider should allow for 2 (half-day) workshops per annum within their fixed
quote and provide a cost per hour for any additional training that may be requested,
General purpose application software
The service provider will maintain and provide support for application software packages
as following:
General software: This includes application software in wide use within the Academy
(e.g. Microsoft Office suite of applications, Exchange/Outlook email, Internet Explorer,
Acrobat, Dreamweaver, etc).
Specialist software: This includes application software which is in limited use within the
Academy - usually by one or two departments only (e.g. SPSS, Idealist,
Minitab, Firefox, Visual C++, etc). Limited or no support, documentation or training is
available on specialist application software. The service provider will be responsible for
ensuring that the required software is correctly installed and working on the required
maintained workstations.
The service provider will recommend the most cost-effective licence deal available for
the required software based on the usage requirement.
Major roll-outs of new software are infrequent but we will need the service provider to
lead on this and to carry this out.
Data storage and backup
Ensure data is stored and backed up across the Academy to protect against potential loss
of staff or student data; this is presently carried out by the in-house ICT technician.
Network printing solutions, scanners and MFDs.
The service provider will support a number of networked printers available to staff and
students, using the ‘papercut’ print management system; liaising with external providers
to ensure printing is available to all staff and students.
Assistive Technology
The service provider will provide access to appropriate advice, information and support
to assist staff and students with disabilities and dyslexia.
Anti-spam and virus protection
The Academy has installed Anti-virus software which must be monitored and updated as
software upgrades become available. Monitoring reports should be shared weekly with
the E-safety staff lead and any students/staff breaches of the Academy’s acceptable
usage policy should be reported immediately.
Workstation rooms for open access and teaching
The service provider will maintain and support nine PC workstation rooms that are
available for class teaching and ‘open access’ to authorised users. The rooms are
located as follows:
Rooms available for teaching
Main Building, Room 314
Main Building, Room 312
Main Building, Room 311
Main Building, Room 310
Main Building Room 309
Main Building Room 225
Briery Room 404
Breiry Room 502
Briery Room 503
The service provider should aim to ensure greater than 90% availability of computer
equipment in each of the workstation room during term time. Regular inspections of the
workstation rooms should be made. Timetables are updated regularly providing
information of workstation room class bookings and the availability of open-access slots.
Management information and administrative systems
The service provider will need to support and develop central management information
applications and corporate databases, such as the Corero financial management system,
and Student Records (SIMS). The service provider will undertake the maintenance and
development of these systems to meet the Academy's processing and reporting
requirements, liaising closely with appropriate staff in the professional and administrative
departments.
User Liaison
The service provider should liaise with the Academy user community (to obtain feedback on
IT strategy, planned developments, services changes and the quality of services provided)
by the following means:
Provider to also conduct an annual user satisfaction survey where comments received via
the Helpdesk and queries recorded in the service desk system are analysed and actions
taken to improve services wherever possible.
Direction of St Aidan’s Academy staff- ICT Technician.
The ICT technician will remain an employee of the Trust and be line managed by leadership
staff within the Academy. The service provider will be expected to assist in directing the day
to day duties of the ICT Technician and in prioritising workload. The service provider will be
expected to direct the ICT technician to fulfil those tasks within the service contract that fall
within the duties of the post (can be provided on request). The Academy Trust will not
provide a substitute member of staff when the post holder is on leave.
What we would expected: Service Standards
Provide high quality and reliable IT services that are cost-effective, based on best practice
and meet the requirements of the Academy.
General service expectations and standards include the following:
 Maintain high availability of internet services and applications. Minimum 98%
availability during the academic year with any work scheduled for half term to
minimise impact.
 Aim to resolve network outages affecting core services within the shortest possible
 period.
 Keep service disruptions due to planned outages for essential upgrades and systems
administration to a minimum (Engage with appropriate representatives of user
community to schedule down-time at a time convenient to the majority of the users
affected).
 Keep the user community informed of service issues at all times.
 Engage the user community in new developments and service changes.
 Schedule major changes to the network infrastructure during vacations as far as
possible.
 Essential hardware and software activities that require interruptions of the service to
all or part of the network should be carried out on a specific date and at a specific
time during the working day.
Adhere to the Trust’s finance policy in respect of all recommendations regarding ICT
purchases
Adhere to the Trust’s Safeguarding Policy in respect of staff visiting school buildings.
(see attached)
Prior to deployment on site, the service providers staff will have been subject to an
enhanced Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) check or certificate from the Disclosure and
Barring Service (DBS) and at all times the service provider is obliged to comply with the
safeguarding children and safer recruitment in education statutory guidance issued by the
Department for Education (or its successor department from time to time). The cost of
complying with this guidance is to be met by the the service provider.
Monitoring success
It would be expected that the IT provider monitor its performance in the following ways:
• Undertake an annual user satisfaction survey – the results will be analysed and considered
in relation to service improvement.
• Internal reviews on departments will be read for feedback on the IT performance in relation
to that department.
• Feedback from comment and feedback forms monitored.
A Bi-weekly meeting with designated Senior Leadership Team member of the academy will
be expected.
Contract Monitoring
The service provider will report quarterly on performance against the following KPIs:
• Service availability (up-time) of key IT services, including the internet access, Academy
Web Server, Exchange, Webmail, Ebackpack and SIMS.
• Level of user satisfaction with IT services identified by users as being important (from
annual user survey).
Target KPI’s to be agreed at the start of the contract.
An annual assessment will be undertaken at an agreed time each year with an interim
review each quarter.
In addition it is expected that both parties will do the following in order for each to fulfill its
contractual obligations:
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Understand and check Academy/Provider needs and issues
Understand and help define Academy/Provider requirements
Keep each other up-to-date and informed on any relevant issues
Act promptly to resolve Academy/Provider problems
Plan and manage own time and ensure Provider deliverables are completed within
the timescales
Identify and share issues likely to impact on performance and satisfaction at the
Academy/Service Provider
Comply with government legislation, academy policies and company and customer
quality standards and processes
Constantly measure quality of own deliverables