This guide explains why ICT procurement is a key governance issue for schools and trusts, and how using a Department for Education‑approved framework such as Everything ICT helps boards discharge their responsibilities. It sets ICT purchasing in the context of the Procurement Act 2023 and DfE guidance, emphasising that decisions must be proportionate, transparent, and evidence‑based rather than focused on lowest price alone. It outlines compliant routes including “three‑quote” processes, mini‑competitions, direct awards, benchmarking and deal registration, showing how frameworks provide pre‑vetted suppliers, robust documentation and clear audit trails. The guide also highlights common risks (such as informal quoting, unmanaged renewals and weak specifications) and describes what governors and trustees should reasonably expect from leadership teams in terms of rationale, compliance evidence, conflict‑of‑interest management and value for money.
Procurement compliance may not be the primary focus at board/governor level, but it has clear governance implications. Decisions about IT procurement, devices, infrastructure, cloud services, and managed support can involve significant spends, long-term commitments, and important data protection considerations.
Many of you will have heard of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (PCR2015), which for a decade have described how public sector bodies, including schools and trusts, must approach procurement to ensure fairness, transparency and value for money. The latest rules are now set out in the Procurement Act 2023 (PA2023), which brings updates and improvements to the regime, but with limited fundamental change to procurement policy — and certainly no need for schools or trusts to rewrite their existing local procurement policies.
As with all other areas of public spending, decisions about IT procurement should be proportionate, transparent, and defensible. Schools and trusts often choose to ensure procurement compliance by using a procurement framework providing pre-approved, compliant access to suppliers. Procurement frameworks carry out regular due diligence and competitive checks on their supply base, allowing schools to select suppliers through a structured process without the complexity and time requirements of running a competitive tender process themselves. Procurement frameworks undertake these processes every day for products and service values from low £000’s to £millions using approved, tested templates — whereas your school team may only do this once or twice a year.
This guide brings together some of the key considerations governors may want to keep in mind when engaging with your school or trust’s ICT procurement, and in particular the role Everything ICT’s Department for Education (DfE)-approved framework plays in supporting compliant, best value for money, well-evidenced purchasing decisions.
Procurement governance
Governors and trustees are accountable for the processes and controls that govern procurement activities but are not typically involved in the running of the procurement exercises themselves. Governors and trustees therefore need confidence and evidence that procurement activities:
- are compliant and follow the regulations and financial policies outlined by DfE
- adhere to the school or trust’s local procurement policies and procedures
- give proper and appropriate consideration to value for money
- identify and manage any actual or potential conflicts of interest and
- ensure that processes and decisions are recorded to provide a clear audit trail
ICT procurement can present particular challenges because requirements are often technical, hardware prices in particular can fluctuate rapidly with changing market conditions, and contracts often run for several years. Using a DfE-approved compliant procurement process or framework, such as the Everything ICT Framework, addresses all of the above issues.
”Three Quote” procurement policies
For most procurements, schools and trusts typically have a procurement policy that follows DfE guidelines and stipulates that at least three quotes are to be sought for all procurements over a minimum value threshold set by the school or trust, or where the service being procured has an expected life exceeding one year.
When procurement values are high or when the service requirements are quite complex DfE guidance recommends that a procurement competition should be undertaken.
Procurement Frameworks have been established, and many are approved by DfE, for schools and trusts to use for both ‘three quote’ procurements and for procurement competitions. These Frameworks provide schools and trusts and governors and trustees reassurance that the procurements:
- are proportionate to the value of the contract
- provide genuinely comparable pricing information
- involve suitable suppliers and treat them on a fair and equitable basis
- apply clear and consistent assessment criteria and
- are legally compliant with school/trust policies and DfE guidance.
Simply collecting prices does not, of itself, demonstrate compliance or value for money. Informal comparisons, or quotes gathered after a preferred supplier has already been identified, can leave schools exposed to challenge.
Frameworks, such as the Everything ICT Framework, have one operator that manages a pre-validated network of suppliers. It may appear that approaching such a framework for quotes suggests that the school has only asked one ‘supplier’. In reality, such frameworks deliver ‘three quote’ compliance through the framework process itself. This is because the supplier validation, due diligence and selection has taken place at framework level, and does not need to be repeated by individual schools or trusts. The framework operator itself can therefore seek three, or more, competitive prices from validated suppliers, each of whom are proven to be able to meet the specific requirements. And, in the case of the DfE-approved Everything ICT Framework, this can be achieved at absolutely no additional cost to the school or trust, saving school staff valuable time and effort that would otherwise be required to research the marketplace and seek separate quotes from multiple sources.
Other compliant procurement processes
The ‘Three Quote’ procurement process, often using a framework, is the process used by the majority of schools and trusts wishing to purchase ICT equipment and products.
There are a number of other compliant procurement processes that can be used depending on the circumstances, likely value, scale and lifecycle of the requirements or services.
Framework Competitions
Where a school or trust wants to compare approaches, service levels or pricing, a mini-competition can be run between the suppliers on a framework. The suppliers that you select will have been validated and approved to participate and by using proven document templates and competition processes the process remains compliant while allowing multiple suppliers to respond to a clear set of requirements.
The advantage of using a framework such as the Everything ICT Framework is that these processes can be carried out largely on your behalf by the framework operator who will structure the process, agree the timelines, develop (with the school’s input) the requirements documentation, assist in selecting the right suppliers to include, manage the end-to-end procurement process, facilitate the evaluation, and record all decisions clearly. For governors, this provides reassurance that pricing and service comparisons are fair, proportionate, and properly evidenced.
Direct Awards
In some cases, obtaining three quotes or running a competition is not practical or feasible. Procurement guidance and legislation caters for these circumstances, and where appropriate, schools and trusts may make a Direct Award. A compliant Direct Award is still fully evidenced but involves only a single preferred or specialist supplier and often recognises the technical, financial and ‘change management’ challenges of moving away from a strong incumbent. The terms and conditions of the Everything ICT framework have provisions to grant Direct Awards simply and rapidly that are fully compliant with DfE guidance and procurement law.
Benchmarking
There are procurement circumstances where a school or trust is satisfied that a particular supplier has provided a strong competitive quote for a product or service but where governors and trustees may require appropriate evidence that the quote has been benchmarked against similar products or services available in the sector. The Everything ICT framework process provides for such circumstances and can approach the supplier market and independently gather alternative pricing and service information that allows a benchmarking comparison to be documented without the need to run a formal competition. The outcome of the process is a compliant Benchmarking report that the school or trust leadership team can share with governors and trustees to evidence that a compliant procurement process has been followed.
Deal Registration
It is not unusual, particularly for equipment and hardware products, for a school or trust to establish a strong relationship over a period of time with a single supplier for specific products. The relationship will often secure continuity of supply, preferential pricing, and operational support/added value that ‘three quote’ procurement processes cannot better. In these circumstances the supplier may well have obtained a long term ‘deal registration’ agreement with a manufacturer for the supply of their products to a specific school or trust at preferential rates. Deal Registration can secure pricing with substantial discounts from regular market prices and in such cases, obtaining comparable quotes from other suppliers is often unrealistic because they will not be offered the same preferential deal by the manufacturer and will therefore almost certainly be unable to better the pricing of the supplier who has the ‘deal registration’ for that specific school or trust. On behalf of the school or trust, and using the compliance of the Everything ICT framework process we can prepare a Deal Registration report (similar to a Benchmarking report) that documents the characteristics of the deal registration and provides market-comparative data to support supplier selection and procurement compliance.
Open tender
An Open Tender is a compliant option, particularly for very large, complex or unusual projects. However it places the full burden of responsibility for the procurement process on the school or trust (or a paid-for advisory company). The elapsed procurement time is also usually significantly longer than a mini-competition run under a framework.
For ICT procurements, this can mean significant additional time, effort, cost and risk, as schools and trusts must manage the process themselves and ensure it is compliant and fully documented. Unless managed extremely carefully, open tender procurements can also result in time consuming legal challenges and possible reputational damage for the school/trust, as has sadly been evidenced by several recent and well-publicised education-related procurement failures. As a result, schools and trusts tend only to use open tenders where no suitable framework route is available, and it is one of the reasons why DfE suggest using an approved framework as the route of choice.
What governors and trustees should expect
Good governance does not require line-by-line involvement in procurement, but there are some consistent indicators of sound practice that you should expect from your school or trust leadership team.
A clear procurement rationale
The chosen procurement route should be explained in terms of proportionality, value, and risk. Use of a framework is often quoted as bringing compliance assurance, accessing a wider range of competent suppliers, reducing complexity and procurement cost, and ensuring value for money.
Evidence of compliance
This may include confirmation that the framework is DfE-approved, a short summary of how and which options were considered, and records of approval. Everything ICT provides compliant documentation that can be shared at board level without unnecessary technical detail.
Value beyond lowest cost
Procurement decisions should reflect best value, taking account of service levels, reliability, support, and whole-life cost — not price alone. Everything ICT supports schools to compare options on a like-for-like basis and document why a particular solution represents best value.
Conflicts of interest
Any relevant interests should be declared and recorded, regardless of the procurement route. Framework procurement helps reduce challenge and compliance risks by keeping decisions structured and transparent within an already-defined compliant process.
Managing ICT procurement risk with Everything ICT
Some procurement risks arise repeatedly in schools and trusts, often without intention. These are invariably linked to process rather than poor decision-making.
Examples include:
- Continuing with existing suppliers as contract end dates slip past without a clear, compliant basis
- Contract extensions that are rolled forward automatically, often by supplier default conditions, without review
- Unclear requirement definition or specification leading to less than perfect ‘fit for purpose’ supplier-led solutions
- Limited/unclear procurement documentation, making decisions difficult to evidence, increasing the risk of supplier challenge and potentially leading to breaches of DfE guidelines and procurement compliance regulations and
- Treating the documented process as ‘flexible’. The majority of successful procurement challenges result from the buyer failing to adhere rigidly to the process they advertised in the documentation when running the competition.
Everything ICT is designed to address these risks within a compliant framework structure. We support schools in testing the market where appropriate, helping manage contract end dates and renewals, clarifying requirements, and documenting decisions in a way that is proportionate and auditable.
For governors and trustees, this means greater confidence that procurement is being handled properly, with less exposure to risk and clearer records when assurance is needed.
For school leaders, it provides practical support without taking control away from those responsible for delivery.
ICT procurement does not need to be complex to be compliant, but it does need to be considered. Governors and trustees are entitled to assurance that decisions are made through sound processes and that risks are understood.
Using Everything ICT’s DfE-approved framework provides that assurance, helping schools procure effectively while giving boards confidence in the decisions being made.