School Information Management System

SIMS

Original author(s)	Philip Neal (Bedfordshire LEA)
Developer(s)	Capita Group
Initial release	1984 (1984)
Development status	Active
Operating system	Microsoft Windows
Platform	.NET Framework
Available in	English
Type	Management information system
Licence	Proprietary
Website	www.capita-sims.co.uk

SIMS (School Information Management System) is a management information system used by more than 21,000 schools in 150 local authorities across the United Kingdom boasting around 80% of the market share.

Overview

SIMS is built mainly on Microsoft SQL Server with some components using flat files to store data.

SIMS provides a suite of software covering all parts of a schools' administration, from behaviour and achievement, planning curriculum and lesson structures, dinner money, educational learning plans, data sharing for the 14-19 agenda, managing registration and admissions, and providing teachers, parents and pupils access to all this information over the internet through a Microsoft SharePoint based webpage.

In recent years, SIMS has moved away from being viewed as a school administration tool and developed into a comprehensive and integrated Management Information System (MIS) for managing school business processes and whole school improvement. It supports schools in responding to The Children's Plan by enabling them to view a more rounded picture of a child; SIMS has achieved this by moving away from a modular approach.

Capita has an extensive list of partners that produce applications, an example of which is one that allows parents to pay for their children's dinner money on-line in a way that significantly reduces the unnecessary workload formerly put upon teachers to keep track of and chase up small sums of money. In 2004 Capita teamed up with ParentPay to provide this service integrated within SIMS, later releasing their own product in 2005.

Summary of SIMS functions

• helps schools manage student registration and truancy, student performance, personalised learning, exam organisation, timetable construction, cover management and a range of other school activities
• maintains real-time information to support schools in conducting regular and comprehensive self-evaluations, target resources, support personal development, promote achievements and share good practice
• enables teachers to access information, analyse and input pupil data through the use of integrated desktop tools
• provides web access through the SIMS Learning Gateway, which allows teachers and parents to access the data in SIMS from home

History

SIMS was the first MIS for schools. It was initially developed by Philip Neal, a teacher at Lea Manor High School, from 1982 to 1983. Bedfordshire County Council (Lea Manor's local education authority) then further developed the product, which began being used by other schools in 1984.

In 1988, a commercial company, SIMS Ltd, was founded to further develop SIMS.

SIMS Ltd was acquired by Capita Group in 1994.

Market share

SIMS has a market share of over 80% in the MIS industry for schools in England and Wales.

In 2005, recognising the serious issues posed by the overwhelming market dominance of SIMS and the lack of competition, Becta report highlighted the fact that the charges to schools of maintaining current Management Information Systems (MIS) from the dominant supplier has increased up to threefold since 1999. BECTA suggests that many schools and colleges are being charged ever-increasing amounts to maintain their MIS and are not receiving value for the money they spend.

The key issues that also emerged from Becta report were as follows:

• For many schools costs are escalating very significantly with charges from the dominant supplier, now between 2.5 and 3 times their 1999 levels.

• There are very significant barriers to the effective choice by schools/LAs and there is a lack of any significant contractual commitment between the dominant supplier and schools/LAs regarding the timeliness and quality of software provided.

Capita Children’s Services’ position was that the report did not adequately take account of increased government demands on schools for statutory returns or the significant growth in the number of individuals using technology in schools, both of which contribute to increased costs. ICT in Schools Survey 2004. The report did not highlight that in spite of the increases Capita's charges were still significantly lower than its competitors.

Becta established a Schools Interoperability Framework (based on the model used in the United States) which education products could easily comply with and interoperate. The director of SIMS, however, claimed that the implementation of these standard interfaces would incur a significant cost to their software.

Capita Children’s Services has been an active founding member of the Systems Interoperability Framework (SIF) Association UK since 2006 and the company has had a representative on all of the organisation’s boards. It participated in both the first Becta sponsored proof of concept project in Birmingham 2006/2007 and the second, involving Northern Ireland schools and the University of Durham (2007). Managing director of SIMS, Phil Neal, has stated that Capita’s input helps to shape the quality of the SIF data model and address concerns around the applicability of SIF in the UK, particularly with regard to security. The company was one of the first UK MIS suppliers to release a commercial SIF based solution in its SIMS Partnership Xchange product.

Bromcom have referred Capita to the OFT on three occasions. The first complaint in 1999 was not upheld and the OFT in their concluding letter to Bromcom stated “it emerged that the information which you claimed Capita had refused to supply, had never in fact been requested by you”. The second complaint which was concluded in 2003 was resolved by way of Capita providing Voluntary Assurances as to the way in which it would make interface information available; the OFT IT expert supported Capita’s position in regard to the way in which it required third parties to interface to SIMS. The third complaint which was lodged in 2009 is still awaiting a decision from the OFT (April 2010) as to whether they will investigate. The latest complaint alleges that Capita is abusing their dominant position. The complaint to the OFT follows recommendations made in 2005 by Becta’s School Management Information Systems and Value for Money report, a number of which remain outstanding.

The complaint alleges that Capita’s charges for contracts and dominance in the UK schools software market has led to schools over paying by £75.4 million over a ten year period.. Capita Children's Services have, through their lawyers, robustly rebutted the allegations and the situation is currently ongoing.

Awards and criticism

Capita Children's Services won an award at the 2009 BETT show for its SIMS Partnership Xchange product which allows school consortiums to securely share student information to aid in delivering the 14-19 Curriculum a key part of which is the 14–19 Diploma. The company was nominated as ICT Supplier of the Year in the BETT Awards 2010 Capita press release. Capita are also partners of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL)[1] and Becta.

In March 2009, Capita SIMS were said to be responsible for sending a truancy warning notice to the family of a Cheshire school student who had died two months before. Capita Children’s Services have stated that the software that was used is designed to keep track of pupils’ attendance and the school is able to produce letters to parents based on this information. When a child is no longer attending a school, for whatever reason, their data can be viewed for historical reasons but is generally hidden from view in the day-to-day running of the school. The software will allow the school to continue to run reports and produce letters to parents, as occasionally it is necessary to do so. It appears that this is what has happened in this case and Capita have now made changes to prevent this situation from happening again.

The origin of SIMS has been surrounded with controversy. This is due to the fact that private fortunes were made from a system developed with public money. Philip Neal (who was then working as a teacher for Lea Manor) wrote a program allowing teachers to produce computerised pupil reports. Bedfordshire then developed the scheme using thousands of pounds of its own money. The assets were then passed onto SIMS Ltd. MP Margaret Moran described this as ‘using council resources to effectively set up a private business’.

At the time, Tony Callaghan, the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers executive member for Bedfordshire, branded the episode a "disgrace". A member of the council's education committee when SIMS became a private company, he told The TES: "It seems amazing to me that this was allowed to happen. I was always amazed that there wasn't a full and thorough investigation. I would like to see an investigation to see if any of that money can be retrieved and paid into the coffers of the county council, which funded the original operation."

This version of events was strongly disputed by Neal. He has stated that, although he wrote the program that formed the foundations of SIMS whilst he was working at Lea Manor, the work was undertaken completely in his own time. He added that Bedfordshire authority sold the software on to other councils and it was the revenue from this that was used to develop SIMS further, a process that was fully approved by the district auditor.

External links

• SIMS