It is important that when schools make purchases of ICT Hardware, ICT Technical Support and ICT Software, they are satisfied that they have obtained Value for Money. Cheapest does not necessarily represent value for money and schools that may be inclined to make spending decisions based purely on cost may find out that there are hidden costs associated with that option, or that they have left themselves vulnerable should their chosen provider or product subsequently let them down.
With the ever increasing dependence on ICT for the delivery of teaching and learning and management information systems this can be a major problem.
To assist schools in making informed choices in this area a number of simple checksheets of key questions to ask of potential suppliers have been designed.
These include the information on the right hand side.
