David Ogden's presentation from the Huddle Government in the Cloud Conference held in January 2013 and how the Education Funding Agency use Huddle.

1. David Ogden – Education Funding Agency

2. Background and context
The Education Funding Agency is an Executive
Agency of the Department for Education.
It provides revenue and capital funding for
education (3 -19) and supports the delivery of
building and maintenance programmes for schools,
academies, Free Schools and sixth-form colleges

3. Arm’s Length Body reform
The Department implemented a huge change programme,
with several of its arm's length bodies closing and others
becoming part of the Department. As a result, there are four
new executive agencies responsible for key delivery
functions:
• The Standards & Testing Agency,
• The Teaching Agency,
• The National College Agency
• The Education Funding Agency

4. Change in Education Capital expenditure
Labour’s flagship programme for investment in the
education estate was ‘Building Schools for the Future’
(BSF), a £65bn programme targeted to rebuild or
refurbish every secondary school in England
It was an ‘Educational Transformation’ programme
delivered by Local Authorities and overseen by
Partnerships for Schools.

5. BSF: Procurement and auditability
Responsibility was with the Local Authority (LA).
Depending upon local skill, experience and
financial resource the management of the process
varied from management by e-mail / dedicated
administrative personnel to full Collaborative
Software packages.

6. Priority School Building Programme
On 24 May 2012, the Secretary of State
announced which schools will have their condition
needs addressed through the Priority School
Building programme (PSBP).
This is a £2.7bn programme
targeted at the 261 schools in
England considered to be in the
worst condition.

7. Rebuilding projects
It is predicated on utilising Private Finance
although 42 schools will be rebuilt using capital
funds.
The schools are batched geographically:
 7 Capital Funded batches
 19 Private Finance batches

8. The PSPB
• To be delivered by Central Government
• The EFA is responsible for and will manage the procurement being
a single intelligent client
• Focused on building condition
• Must reduce bidding costs to the private sector
• Baseline designs to be used by the EFA and shared with contractors
to make design process more efficient and effective (share lessons
learnt, standardisation of proven technical solutions etc.)
• 5 year programme

9. What we need to manage the process
As a managing agent, Central Government (not the LA) needs to
take responsibility for document control, procurement compliance
and efficiency. Issues to consider:
 Data Room Provision (Data Repository)
 Iterative nature of the Competitive Dialogue Process used in
Private Finance procurement
» Collaborative working environment
 Compliance Management / auditability
 Security of existing data
 Bidder confidentiality

10. Collaborative software requirements
 Needs to sit outside the DfE environment
 Needs to function as a data repository (Electronic data room)
 Version control is important, although easily managed
 Key correspondence to be retained for audit purposes:
– Questions / clarifications from bidders
– Response to bidders
 Document submission in electronic format
 Ability to control access to data (bidders can’t see others’ submissions etc)

11. Collaboration software requirements
 Scalable in use
 Web-based platform, not constrained to operating system
 Must not be so big / complex that it distracts from running projects
 Must be intuitive – avoid extensive training and support costs
 Does not need resourcing or cost capability

12. Collaboration software requirements
Software features available in commercial packages include:
 Approval Process Control  Legacy System Integration
 Assignment Tracking  Lessons Learned
 Assumptions Management  Milestone Tracking
 Benefits Realization  Multi-Currency / Language
 Billing & Chargeback Tracking  Percent-Complete Tracking
 Budgeting & Forecasting  Portfolio Management
 Change Management  Progress Tracking
 Cost-to-Completion Tracking  Project Accounting / Estimating
 Customizable Functionality  Project Workflow
 Deliverables Management  Quality Control
 Dependency Management  Reporting
 Expense Tracking  Requirements Management
 Fault Management  Resource Management
 Gantt Charts  Risk Management
 Knowledge Management  Scheduling
 Skill Pool Management
 Time Management / Tracking

13. Huddle: How it supports our objectives
 Uses workspaces that allow clear project demarcation
and management
 Audit trail / version control
 Backup / archive
 IL2 security
 Paperless submissions
 Ensuring Bidder confidentiality: Permissions, teams

16. Huddle: How it supports our objectives
Spin offs - workspaces created for:
• Best practise
• Standard documents
• Programme level documents
• Schools in pipeline
• Sport England Consultation
• Templates for standard file structures

17. Huddle: How it supports our objectives
The best feature is that it is intuitive
 Rolled out with minimal training
 Can be simplified for use by the private sector
 Advisors have readily adopted it without training
 Online help available
 Provides focused collaboration features and is low maintenance
 Usage rising from 227 users to 350 users

18. Observations
 If using for tender submission ensure ability to close access
when deadline passed
 Whiteboards and discussions are communal - Use for non-
confidential information only
 Select project management features according to need, avoid
excessive features
 Private Sector needs of Collaborative software differ from Public
Sector - understand your needs and objectives

19. The G-Cloud Programme
Cloud computing has brought about a step
change in the economics and sustainability of
Information and Communication Technology.
Government is committed to the adoption of
cloud computing and delivering computing
resources. The G-Cloud is an iterative
programme of work to achieve this which will
deliver fundamental changes in the way the
public sector procures and operates ICT.

20. Thank you
Questions & Answers