Star Academies ICT Delivery Partner

The Star Academies Trust (Star) is a Trust of 31 Academies, which are currently located across 5 regions. There are 10 Primary Schools, 20 Secondary Schools and 1 'All through' school. The Head Office is based in Blackburn.The Trust was initially established in 2010 and changed its name to Star Academies in 2018. The Trust runs a diverse network of primary and secondary schools. We are a values-based organisation committed to enhancing social mobility. All our efforts are geared towards raising the aspirations of children and young people in areas of social and economic deprivation to improve their life chances and help them succeed at the highest levels of education, employment and the professions.Star Academies is one of the countries leading education providers and for the last 2 years has claimed first place in the MAT performance tables. It also holds the top 3 positions nationally for the Governments headline Progress 8 measure. Additionally, 5 schools run by Star Academies are in the top 14 nationally for progress and Tauheedul Islam Girls High School has ranked as the best in the country for performance for the last 4 years.Our schools work together as Star Partnerships in five clusters. Schools within each partnership cluster collaborate to share expertise and maximise opportunities and experience for our pupils.To enable the Trusts IT team to focus on the management of ICT and not need to be concerned with the increasing challenges regarding ICT supply, procurement, implementation and resourcing the decision has been taken to identify an ICT Delivery Partner. At a high level the requirements are: In school solutions• ITSM tooling• All hardware supply on a project and ad-hoc basis• Maintenance of supplied equipment• Project Management• Programme Management• Technical delivery• Technical testing against the SND• Training of school staff• Equipment disposal• Cabling• Digital signage• Audio visual• Entry notification• Asset tagging• SoftwareConnectivity• Broadband connectivity for all sites• Failover lines for all sites• Firewall provision and management• Filtering provision and management• DSL reporting General• ICT design with construction and design teams• Asset review and ongoing management• Due diligence on potential new schools• Subcontractor and 3rd party management• Ad-hoc in school technical support resource• Innovation & ongoing input into SND• Collective partnership (CSR) targets aligned to the Trust objectivesTo be clear, what is not included initially:• Ongoing support - although a local regional model will be required as part of the procurement process • Project prioritisationBidders should note the following;• The Trust will provide a standard contract as part of the ITT Pack• There will NOT be an initial requirement for TUPE but the TUPE Schedules will be included in the contract pack as it is expected that TUPE will apply should the Trust choose to move forward with regional support going forward.It is expected that the breakdown of the ICT spend will be indicatively as follows:20% School ICT Solutions – (6% of which is AV)10% Broadband/Connectivity45% Hardware10% Software15% Support