Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the potential costs to schools and academy trusts of moving from existing Management Information System contracts to suppliers or products available through its proposed procurement framework, including (a) contract termination costs, (b) data migration costs, (c) implementation costs and (d) staff training costs.

Schools are classified as Contracting Authorities under the Procurement Act 2023 and are expected to comply with that legislation in addition to the principles set out in the Managing Public Money Green Book.

Therefore, there is already a pre-existing expectation for the sector to routinely test the market and to demonstrate compliance with both procurement legislation and the MPM Green Book for all categories of spend including spend on management information systems. The requirement to use the framework for MIS once it is launched is to be followed at the natural expiry of current contracts. The sector is not expected to terminate contracts early in order to award a contract under the framework.