Edinburgh Sucks! | More council money down the drain

Children & Families

More council money down the drain

By The Basa ⋅ September 17, 2007 ⋅

In the midst of all the huge cuts in services in the city and never smart in the IT arena, word reaches us that the council (mainly Children & Families) are again throwing our money down the toilet on needless purchases.

The company have signed up with Australian company StudyWiz for their Virtual Learning Environment.

What makes this a stupid purchase is that there is a perfectly adequate Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) within the National Intranet GLOW (http://www.glowscotland.org.uk/) and it is free to all because it was set up with ₤37.5 million investment by SEED (Scottish Executive Education Department). We have been told that the cost of this new VLE is way into six figures.

So, why would the council be this stupid to duplicate the efforts? Well the reason is that it is down to the strangling contract the Council signed with BT, their IT contractors of choice. We will have some information on the costs BT charge the council very soon. (It is also worth remembering that a BT corporate employee changed his position into into a teacher so that he could talk up his company to EdSucks - the post is here, read the updates).

BT have told the council that another six figures will be charged to change firewall and port restrictions that would allow Edinburgh to be where all other schools in Scotland are, and not isolate them from the rest of the country.

A six figure sum seems awfully expensive to open up a few ports and play a bit with the firewall. Perhaps an independent consultant is required to stop the council from being ripped off constantly by BT.