EDIT Team Profile

EDIT is an LEA team of seventeen staff based at the EDIT Centre within Heywood Community School. The team seeks to provide a comprehensive and integrated advice, training and general support service to schools and the LEA in the use of ICT.

Strategic Purpose

The EDIT Team was established as an in-house provider of ICT services primarily in response to government initiatives such as the Local Management of Schools where the introduction of ICT in support of school administration was supported by substantial Education Support Grant funding. At that point in time there was no obvious commercial provider of such services to schools and hence the LEA started the support team from scratch.

The introduction of the National Grid for Learning, Information Management Strategy and the promotion of the use of ICT across the curriculum has led to a considerable increase in work for the EDIT and the team has expanded to its current size in response to demand from schools. The team seeks to work in partnership with schools in achieving best value and promoting the effective use of ICT.

EDIT exists:

	to provide an efficient, comprehensive and co-ordinated range of services to support the use of ICT systems in schools by the provision of advice, locally based training, access to helpline services and the delivery of on-site support to enable them to achieve their business objectives.
	to support managers and staff across the LEA and other agencies in their dealings with schools and in the development and support of affordable ICT based Information Systems and infrastructure.

Service aims, objectives and key targets

The mission of the EDIT Team is to provide the best possible strategic guidance and practical help to users of ICT and information systems in schools and the LEA and to contribute to the raising of educational standards through meeting their business needs.

The EDIT Team aims to be effective and communicative, evaluating its own performance, anticipating developments and being responsive to the ever-changing needs of customers.

Service priorities for EDIT decided through termly meetings of the ICT Steering Group and the Data Management Group. These groups include representatives of schools and other bodies. Senior staff from the team also attend IT Co-ordinator and other groups as required.

Current Performance

The needs of schools are identified through individual contacts with schools and LEA officers, monitoring of LEA and DfES initiatives and plans, plus termly meetings of User Groups. Targets have been set for service performance:

The team has a commitment to continuous improvement and the work of the service is evaluated through internal self evaluation through the performance management framework model using data collected from the schools survey. External evaluation has been provided through a study commissioned from District Audit and through the brokerage partnership who examined the whole range of ICT support activities and possible future service delivery options.