Agora Learning Partnership - ICT Managed Service

The Agora learning Partnership (Agora) encompasses 9 primary schools and circa 2,693 pupils in Hertfordshire.

The Agora Learning Partnership (formerly the Herts for Learning Multi Academy Trust) is an inclusive, collaborative and forward looking Trust where we all work together, learn together and succeed together in order to give all of the children in our academies the best possible education and learning opportunities.

The nine schools who currently belong to our Partnership benefit greatly from working collaboratively, providing help and support to one another. The relationship between the schools and the Executive Team and Trustees is also deemed to be a strength of the organisation and the support offered by the Executive Team is very much personalised to the individual needs of our schools. However, this only enhances the provision at our schools, whilst enabling them to maintain their individual identities and the autonomy to deliver a curriculum that reflects their school communities and the needs of the children and young people that they serve; we believe this is the only way to achieve the very best educational standards within our schools and across our Trust - high standards that we continually strive for.

Throughout our Partnership, we believe success is measured by the number of children and young people who feel happy, safe and able to flourish, in order that they can reach their full potential educationally and in all other aspects of school and life. As a result, we place children and young people at the heart of all the work that we do and the decisions that we make.

This procurement encompasses the items noted below. In essence, this procurement is all about identifying a single supplier to provide a fully outsourced managed service. 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 bid timescales are noted below but in terms of the managed service this is advertised as a 60 month contract with a maximum 5 year managed service with start and end dates as follows:

Service start date - 1st April 2024

Service end date - 31st March 2029

The new Managed Service Provider may also be required to deliver a range of technology and change management projects.

The companies identified from these shortlisting questions to receive the ITT for the Managed Service will then receive a detailed set of requirements. For the purposes of this shortlisting stage bidders should assume that the ITT will include, but is not be limited to;

• strategic advice and direction to the Trust regarding ICT
• a 42 week core service, incorporating on-site staff/visits as necessary
• Service desk
• 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 approach
• management of all ICT against an agreed SLA
• management of 3rd parties
• relevant monitoring, management, patching and reporting
• training - technical and curriculum as necessary
• risk registers and inventory management
• collective partnership targets aligned to the Trusts objectives

Bidders should note the following:

• The Trust will provide a standard contract as part of the ITT Pack
• It is not expected there may be a requirement for TUPE