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A management information system (MIS) outage at a major supplier has left schools unable to pay suppliers, run after-school clubs and respond to safeguarding concerns.<\/p>\n
Leaders say the problems with the Bromcom system have also left them without access to timetables and prevented them from completing everyday tasks within working hours \u2013 with one MAT boss calling the situation a \u201ccar crash\u201d.<\/p>\n
The company has apologised for the start-of-term issues, but admitted it is unsure how many schools have been hit.<\/p>\n
\u2018<\/strong>Simply not acceptable<\/strong>\u2019 <\/strong> A Bromcom \u201cstatus page\u201d<\/a> shows the incident impacted the company\u2019s MIS cloud between September 4 and 9. Two days were hit by \u201c100 per cent severe degradation\u201d, with the system \u201cdegraded\u201d for more than nine hours on two others.<\/p>\n The system was also listed as being offline for periods \u2013 but Bromcom stressed the system has \u201cremained online\u201d over the \u201cfour working days\u201d. The page shows the MIS cloud has been \u201c100 per cent operational\u201d since Wednesday.<\/p>\n Sharples School in Bolton sent parents its formal complaint letter to Bromcom.<\/p>\n The letter said \u201cpoor and unreliable\u201d service was having a \u201cmajor impact on the day-to-day running\u201d of the secondary. The school\u2019s ability to \u201crespond to safeguarding concerns logged on the system\u201d was also impacted.<\/p>\n \u201cAs you will appreciate\u2026 we rely heavily on Bromcom for these functions, and not being to access the system is simply not acceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n A boss at a trust whose schools were also impacted called the situation a \u201ccar crash\u201d.<\/p>\n Pupils and staff were unable to access timetables online and were unable to print hard copies.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, one headteacher said staff were working early in the morning and into the evenings to rectify issues.<\/p>\n An \u2018annual\u2019 problem<\/strong><\/p>\n Their school also decided to postpone after-school clubs, as parents were unable to book slots online.<\/p>\n \u201cWe haven\u2019t been able to pay suppliers or raise the right invoices. We\u2019ve had suppliers on our backs. It\u2019s more the reputational damage \u2013 it reflects badly on us.\u201d<\/p>\n A senior trust leader elsewhere said attendance teams had suffered the \u201csingle biggest hit\u201d.<\/p>\n The chain was uncertain who was absent \u201cuntil much later in the day and we\u2019re having to tally which children have hit thresholds for home visits\u201d.<\/p>\n The trust was also unable to contact parents to notify them their child had a medical incident.<\/p>\n \u201cThe bigger worry [is] this is becoming an annual problem as we faced the same chaotic issue this time last year. It\u2019s just not good enough.\u201d<\/p>\n Staff have added scores of posts to Reddit and EduGeek pages, with some sharing images of the error messages they received when trying to use the system.<\/p>\n \u2018<\/strong>We<\/strong>\u2019<\/strong>re sorry<\/strong>\u2019<\/strong> Simon Walters, Bromcom\u2019s chief operating officer, stressed that the platform was \u201cnow stable\u201d, but the company continued to \u201cclosely monitor\u201d the situation.<\/p>\n \u201cWe sincerely apologise for the disruption,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cSafeguarding is hugely important to us, and we deeply regret the strain this issue has placed on the affected school staff, pupils and the wider community, specifically at the start of the academic year.\u201d<\/p>\n A notification sent to schools last Thursday said one of Bromcom\u2019s \u201cservers developed a serious fault\u201d, which caused some \u201cinstability\u201d.<\/p>\n The company would not say why the outage happened, but added that it was \u201cworking on a full root-cause analysis\u201d and would tell customers and stakeholders its findings \u201cwithin the next seven days to both restore confidence in the platform and to ensure it doesn\u2019t happen again\u201d.<\/p>\n The cause was \u201cdifferent\u201d to the issues at the start of last year, even though \u201cthe disruption\/impact is similar\u201d.<\/p>\n Market shift in MIS world<\/strong> The emergence of cloud-based suppliers such as Bromcom has led to big changes in the MIS world, estimated to be worth about \u00a3200 million<\/a>.<\/p>\n