Rm Regulatory News (RM.)

4 Jan 2006 07:00

RM PLC04 January 2006 RM chosen by DfES for £16 million education data services contract RM plc, the UK's leading supplier of information and communications technology(ICT) and other services to education, has been awarded a £16 million educationdata services contract by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES). Underthe terms of the contract a consortium, led by RM, will collect and check thedata used to maintain the national pupil database and produce the annualachievement and attainment tables for all schools in England. RM-subsidiary Forvus has been responsible for producing the DfES' achievementand attainment tables since 1995. This new contract, which was awarded followinga competitive procurement exercise, combines the work currently being performedby Forvus with other data capture and cleaning work commissioned by the DfES.The new approach is intended to provide a single more effective service and todeliver efficiency gains for the DfES. The use of sophisticated managementinformation and performance data is increasingly seen by educationalists andpolicy makers as an important tool for driving forward educational standards. Commenting, Tim Pearson, RM's CEO, said: "The role of ICT in education is much wider than simply supporting classroomdelivery. As well as being a leading provider of educational ICT infrastructureand content, this contract, which brings together the UK's leading educationdata specialists, confirms RM's position as the UK's expert provider ofsophisticated education data services. "Together with the RAISEonline project, which we are also delivering, thiscontract shows how the provision of timely and accurate performance data canhelp educators improve the quality of education." - Ends - For further information, please contact: Mike Greig/Phil Hemmings, RM plc 08709 200200Fiona Laffan/Mark Antelme, Brunswick 020 7404 5959 Notes to Editors: The RM consortium includes: Forvus: RM's specialist data management subsidiary;SERAP, part of the University of Bath; and the Fischer Family Trust, acharitable trust engaged in education improvement. The new contract brings together three data services activities that werepreviously handled separately: sourcing assessment and performance data frommore than 50 separate organisations and agencies; matching this data to uniquelyidentifiable pupils; and producing the data for publication in the annualachievement and attainment tables. RAISEonline is a project RM is delivering on behalf of Ofsted and the DfES.RAISEonline will merge and replace Ofsted's PANDA and DfES's PAT. The unifiedapproach provides Inspectors, schools, Local Authorities and School ImprovementPartners (SIPS) with a flexible online tool for exploring and interrogatingperformance data to support self evaluation and inform school improvement. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange