Becta Schools - Leadership and management - Introduction

Manage technology sustainably

Managing sustainable technology means knowing and understanding the total costs incurred through purchasing, maintaining, supporting, developing and eventually replacing your technology.

Managing costs

Studies have shown that a school's overall budget for technology can vary between 3 and 11 per cent of a school's total expenditure.

In the Becta report entitled Managing ICT costs in schools report, individual costs in primary schools were defined as:

Purchasing

Purchasing costs, especially of hardware, are often the starting point for schools considering issues of sustainability. The report showed that the average annual purchase cost of technology can represent only a quarter of the total expenditure required. Find out more about how to purchase technology to achieve best value.

Maintaining, replacing and upgrading

Equipment will need to be maintained and then replaced or upgraded at the end of its useful lifespan. Replacements or upgrades may be required sooner as a result of changes within a school's technology, or if it is unable to support newer and more demanding applications, services and devices.

Replacement and upgrade schedules can be driven by a school's strategic vision for technology or its development plan. These plans for whole-school improvement should include the key priorities defined in the revised Harnessing Technology strategy and may require radical changes or upgrades.

Review your school

Becta's self-review framework is an online tool which can offer you a straightforward route for improving your school's effective use of technology. Based on maturity models, the framework offers benchmarking against established best practice and helps schools to determine their action plan for improvement. Using this will ensure that you are replacing and upgrading in line with national objectives.

Plan your budget

Replacement costs can be scheduled as part of a predictable cycle of renewal, but you must understand the cost of current technology provision before you can plan future developments.

Plan your investment

Understanding your school's overall costs for technology helps you to:

audit current infrastructure
value current assets
track ICT running costs
benchmark financial performance
inform budget-allocation decisions.

Our ICT investment planner allows you to develop an indicative idea of the cost of replacing technology and future provision. It ensures all costs are included and suggests how much a school should be budgeting annually for equipment replacement.

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