Thank you for your e-mail requesting information under the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 / Environmental Information Regulations 2004.

We will proceed with the request which we received today. It is our
intention to have the information delivered to you as soon as possible
otherwise within the statutory 20 working days.

In consideration of the request, which may be subject to any exemptions/
exceptions the Council may rely on to refuse the request, some of which
are absolute and some of which only apply where the public interest in
maintaining the exemption/exception outweighs that in disclosing the
information.

Please note that should you be requesting information under the
Environmental Information Regulations although we provide free access to a
wide range of information through our website, access to any public
registers which we hold and for inspecting information at our offices, we
are allowed to charge you a reasonable fee for providing certain
information.  If applicable, we will issue you with a fee notice.  This
will detail the tasks involved in responding to the request, and
associated costs.  Further information is available on the EIR page of
Bedford Borough Council’s website at the following link:

[1]http://www.bedford.gov.uk/council_and_de...

Please note that once a response has been forwarded to you an anonymised
summary of all requests appear on the Bedford Borough website at the
following link:

[2]http://www.bedford.gov.uk/council_and_de...
Our current practise is that the information will be available to view on
the web for 2 years.

Any future correspondence you may have with the Council in relation to
this matter should be emailed to [3][Bedford Borough Council request email] .

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References

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3. mailto:[Bedford Borough Council request email]

Bedford BC - OFFICIAL-Unsecure

Dear Taylor Dent-Robson

Request pursuant to Freedom of Information Act 2000 – Request No 13948

I refer to your recent enquiry for information held by the Council. 

Under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, the authority must
state whether or not the information exists and I confirm that we do hold
the information you requested.

Please find the information you requested enclosed. 

You requested:

1.     Please provide the name of your principal Education Management
Information System (MIS) e.g. Capita ONE etc. 

Answer: Servelec Synergy

2.     How many modules of the MIS do you currently have?

Answer: Listed below (including sub modules)

3.     Which modules of the MIS do you currently have?

Answer:

•                    Special Educational Needs

•                    Education Psychology Service

•                    Free School Meals & Benefits

•                    Admissions

•                    SAM (part of Admissions)

•                    LLPG/NLPG

•                    EDEM (Part of Admissions)

•                    ENROL (part of Admissions)

•                    Pupil Support Services

•                    Systalk for CORE and EIS

•                    Report Model   

•                    Early Help/Intervention & Safeguarding & Troubled
Families & Reporting & ECAF

•                    Early Years - FIS Funding, FISO Funding, FISO
Provider Portal, Parent Portal

•                    FIS Core and Training

•                    FIS 30hrs Module, FIS Parent
Portal                         

•                    FIS 2YO Funding (FSMB), EYPP ECS Checker, FIS 2YO
Voucher Codes

4.     How many internal users of your MIS do you have? 

Answer: 128 Internal Synergy Users

5.     How many external users of your MIS do you have (i.e. parent portal
/ provider portal / professional portal users)?

Answer: 53 External Users

Numbers for the portals are as follows:

•                    The number of schools with access (SAM) – 70

•                    The current number of providers - 164

•                    The current number of parents - 18,448

6.     How many full time staff are employed to provide user and system
support? (Please do not include any staff whose involvement is only to
upgrade and/or undertake technical maintenance).

Answer: 0 – Database is hosted

7.     How many part time staff are employed to provide user and system
support? (Please do not include any staff whose involvement is only to
upgrade and/or undertake technical maintenance).

Answer: 0

8.     If the answer to Q7 is more than 0, please provide the FTE of each
employee or the number of hours worked.

Answer: N/A

9.     Do the staff referred to in Q6-8 above only provide support to the
MIS or do they also have additional job roles/responsibilities? 

Answer: N/A

10.  If the above staff have additional job roles/responsibilities, please
summarise what these are.

Answer: N/A

11.  How many student records are held within your MIS?  Currently on CORE
–

Answer: 156, 845 records

12.  How many students are currently on roll in schools in your LA (all
school types)? If the current number is not available, please provide the
number as per the Spring School Census 2019.

Answer: Latest Number on Roll file from Spring 19 census shows 29,190
children (excluding subsidiary pupils)

13.  How does student data from your schools get imported into your MIS? 

Answer: Data from the school census gets imported via the xml file
downloaded from the DfE COLLECT system.

Import process exists on Synergy CORE – import process governed by rules –
rules establish whether the data gets imported and replaces/updates any
existing data on the system.

Some pupil data gets added/updated manually as a result of other files
sent from schools (e.g. Current Roll files/Former Roll files ) or CTF
files sent via School to School and the off roll forms

The information supplied to you continues to be protected by the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. You are free to use it for your
own purposes, including any non-commercial research you are doing and for
the purposes of news reporting. Any other re-use, for example commercial
publication, would require the permission of the copyright holder.  For
further information regarding Re-use of Public Sector information please
see link below.

If after viewing the information you are for whatever reason unhappy with
our response to your application you are entitled to pursue any
dissatisfaction through the Council's Internal Review Procedure.  Pursuant
to Section 17 (7) of the Act the procedure provided by the Council for
dealing with complaints about the determination of this request for
information is the Council’s FOI Complaints Procedure, a copy of which can
be obtained on request or is set out at: 
[1]http://www.bedford.gov.uk/council_and_de...

Yours sincerely

Daniela Hanson
Freedom of Information Administrator (Children's Services)
Support Services
Children's Services
Bedford Borough Council, Borough Hall, Cauldwell Street, Bedford, MK42 9AP
Tel: 01234 276749 (Internal 44749)
Website: [2]www.bedford.gov.uk  
‘Bedford Borough Council – Working with our partners to make the Borough a
better place to live, work and visit.’

For up-to-date information on the Council follow us on:
Twitter: @bedfordtweets  
Facebook: [3]https://www.facebook.com/bedfordboroughc...

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Colin Foster, Director of Children’s Services
Borough Hall, Cauldwell Street, Bedford MK42 9AP DX 117105 Bedford 4

Phone (01234) 267422   Minicom (01234) 221827   Web www.bedford.gov.uk

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Bedford Borough Council is continuously working towards the requirements
of the Public Sector Network and Data Protection legislation.  Data
Subjects may exercise their information rights by contacting
[email address].

References

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