We are also a major supplier of NMH and as a matter of principle, we provide
the support wherever the student wishes: usually either at the HEI, or at
his or her residence. This means that we do not charge travel expenses and
we do not require any student to travel. Period. Nor, by the way, do we make
up front administrative charges. The reasons why HEI's are content to use
our services are basically threefold: a) we offer a first class service with
exceptionally high levels of student retention; b) we are more
cost-effective than HEI's and invariably end up saving them overhead
expenses; and c) we assist HEIs to meet many of their obligations under the
DDA.
The idea of demanding formal quotations originates, I suspect, from an
attempt to follow conventional government procurement guidelines. However,
we are talking here about thousands of different quotations for relatively
small orders and what is therefore being demanded is an immense amount of
paperwork (or its electronic equivalent) for what are likely to be only
marginal price differentials. DSA-funded computers and much of the software
and peripherals are nowadays little more than commodities, so that for a
given set of specifications it is difficult to imagine that quotations will
do anything other than come to resemble each other, if they do not already
do so. In our experience (we also provide training but not equipment), what
distinguishes good suppliers from those that are not so good is the quality
of their service - their order response times, their installation procedures
(we spend a great deal of time re-installing poor installations), and above
all their after sales service. These critical elements are not likely to
figure highly in the decision-making process if, as everyone seems to
suspect, the supplier will, in each case, be selected on price. It is true
that minimal service levels are supposed to be covered by the QAG audit -
but I'm afraid those of us who practice in the field are all too well aware
that the QAG supplier list is not a very reliable guide to service quality;
while the idea that every company on the list is a genuine "one stop shop"
is demonstrably untrue.
A quotation system for NMH is equally open to question. As a private sector
provider, we have absolutely no desire to compete with HEI's who consider
that they can offer an adequate service to their students. Our job is to
convince them either that we can do it better and more cost-effectively or
that we can usefully supplement what they already do.
NMH support is a delicate field of operation. Support personnel require
significant training, and provider organizations such as our own need an
ability not simply to offer the right level and intensity of support for
each individual student, but to change personnel where - as sometimes
happens - the student and the support person fail to bond. If these and
other subtleties of NMH provision are to be reduced to a price comparison,
the effectiveness of the program itself will almost certainly be reduced;
and the students will end up paying the price for a system that will, in any
case, offer negligible savings to the tax payer.
Is there a better way of ensuring quality and value for money?
Sound audits conducted by qualified experts are one way. But what about the
students themselves? They are the ultimate purchasers of the services, and
it is their educational careers that are at stake. The fundamental purpose
of the DSA is the empowerment of student recipients. Yet my impression of
the way the proposed changes are being discussed is that the students enter
the equation simply as the objects of decisions made by others. We think
that each student's own voice should be central to the process, that -
within the financial guidelines sanctioned by DIUS and recommended by the
assessor - the student should ultimately be empowered to decide how to
receive his or her support and to be able to change supplier if they feel
that their recommended support needs are not being met.
|