The Department for Education (DfE) is planning to consolidate its digital systems for managing academies and free schools.
It has launched a programme to replace three existing systems with one built on Microsoft Dynamics 365, pulling together information from 10 other systems and covering at least 50 business processes.
The new systems should provide the department with a single view of the relevant schools and include self-service functions for external users.
The DfE, along with the Education and Skills Funding Agency, has begun to look for support in taking the system, which has already been developed to alpha phase, to ‘go live’ under a contract to run until as late as January 2021.
The procurement outline emphasises the need for DfE staff to obtain ‘one version of the truth’ data, and to obtain real time information to manage projects in their regions.
In addition, the system will need to enable parents to be able to submit, manage and track applications for places in the schools for their children.
It is also expected to use the Microsoft Azure Data Factory integration service and PowerBI analytics.
