OHCAT ICT Communications, Security and Telephony Services

Orchard Hill College and Academy Trust is a family of specialist education providers for pupils and students from nursery through to further education across London, Surrey, Sussex and Berkshire. The uniqueness of OHCAT is that it is fully representative of all designations of special education needs and disabilities. Across the whole organisation there are a range of experts and practitioners who advocate for children and young people with special education needs and disabilities to ensure they receive the best possible opportunities to achieve their full potential.

Orchard Hill College (OHC) was established in 1983 and has grown from a small hospital provision into an Outstanding College that operates from eight college centres across London and provides post-16 education for approximately 400 students with mild, moderate, severe and profound learning need.

Orchard Hill College Academy Trust (OHCAT) was established in 2013 by Orchard Hill College to share its expertise and provide services and support to specialist schools. The Trust is now home to 15 special schools

In total there are currently 22 sites encompassing c1,500 staff and c2,077 Pupils

The purpose of this procurement is to identify a single provider who will deliver a managed connectivity, security and telephony solution across all sites. It is not expected that TUPE will apply from the Trust or any existing suppler.

The following list of services are to be provided but should not be seen as a finite list:

• A managed connectivity service to connect schools anywhere in England
• A broadband service for each school based on synchronous connectivity
• A ‘failover’ line
• A firewalled service
• An Education compliant internet filtering service
• Filtering of Trust owned devices away from schools e.g. staff / pupil laptops
• Reporting of online activity service to support Safeguarding
• A Managed VoIP telephony service for each school and central Trust admin to an agreed number of handsets each
• Support and maintenance service
• 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
• Value added services
• Technical interface into the Trusts outsourced support provision
• Relevant training

In parallel to this procurement is also one to outsource the delivery of service and projects at all sites across the Trust. The selected provider from this procurement will work together with the chosen MSP to initially implement seven initial sites – these sites will become the ‘blue print’ for all other sites. The communications for these sites is expected by the summer of 2023 and the onsite solutions will then be delivered. The remining sites will then be implemented as and when connectivity and equipment required inside the buildings becomes available over the following months.