Buckinghamshire Business Services Plus
(Buckinghamshire County Council)
Service Level Agreement (SLA)
Annual / 3 Year Support Services Packages for Schools and Academies
SLA Parties
This agreement is between:
-
Buckinghamshire Business Services Plus - Buckinghamshire County Council County Hall, Aylesbury, Bucks HP20 IUD
-
Tel: 01296 382094 Email: businessservicesplus@buckscc.gov.uk
and
Contents
| Purpose of this SLA | 4 |
| Purchase Summary and other documents | 4 |
| Additional Charges | 4 |
| Service Level Support | 5 |
| Changes to Services | 6 |
| Service Performance Management | 6 |
| Measuring Performance | 6 |
| Complaints | 7 |
| Terminating this agreement | 7 |
Copyright © Buckinghamshire County Council 2016. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system of any nature, or transmitted, in any form or by any means including photocopying without the prior written permission of Buckinghamshire County Council, the copyright owner. If any unauthorised acts are carried out in relation to this copyright work, a civil claim for damages may be made and/or a criminal prosecution may result.
Purpose of this SLA
The purpose of this agreement is to:
- Set out the services that you have purchased from us that the responsibilities of all parties in the agreement
- Set service levels for each of the services purchased
- Enable performance levels to be managed
- Lay out the mechanism for identifying and resolving at the earliest opportunity any areas of non-compliance or under performance
- Lay out the process to be followed in the event that there is an issue with service delivery.
Purchase Summary and other documents
A summary statement of the services with 7/12 and 5/12 invoice schedule , individual Service Descriptors along with this SLA has been supplied in ‘My Documents’ folder in your Commercial Services Account.
If you have additional requirements outside the scope of the packages purchased please talk to us separately about how we might help you meet those requirements. Please email us via the general BSP mailbox (businessservicesplus@buckscc.gov.uk) we will get back you to arrange further discussions.
Additional Charges
Some additional charges may be apply to particular services. Additional charges are categorised as follows in table 1.
|
Charge Type |
Description |
|---|---|
|
Initial Set Up Charges |
These may apply to new or returning customers and relate to set-up on various systems. Charges will typically be a one-off and amount will depend on the service in question and will always be communicated in advance. |
|
SLA Breaches |
In the event that you are not able to adhere to your responsibilities within this agreement, we may need to apply charges to cover the additional costs incurred by us. |
|
Termination Charges |
We may need to apply early termination fee to cover our costs upon you deciding to leave your agreement earlier than the stated contract duration. |
|
Service Credits |
Where BCC does not adhere to its responsibilities and after exhausting the complaints procedure, service credits will be applied. The form that service credits will vary on the type of service delivered. Service credits may take the form of extra hours of support or training, for example. |
Service Level Support
To ensure a consistent customer experience across all BSP packages, service is structured in 3-tier process (as outlined in table 2). However, some service offerings may have support levels that are outside the standard levels described in this section.
Detailed information about specific response times can be found in the individual Service descriptors which can be found in your ‘My documents’ folder in your Commercial Services Account
Please familiarise yourself with the service levels and all information found in these documents.
table 2: Types of service level support and availability
|
Support Level |
Tier 1 |
Tier 2 |
Tier 3 |
|
Service Availability |
Tier 1 |
Tier 2 |
Tier 3 |
Changes to Services
Buckinghamshire County Council reserve the right to amend service offerings as described in the brochure. These amendments will only be addressed in the event circumstances force changes to how we deliver our service going forward.
BCC commits to providing sufficient notice, transition period and an effective date to any new arrangements that may be required. We will keep you informed and will be happy to discuss such changes and affects accordingly.
Sufficient notice may vary dependent on service offering, please see relevant service descriptors for further information.
Performance Management
Measuring Performance
We currently gauge the performance levels of services by reporting on relevant KPI’s stated within the Service Descriptors, available to customers on a per request basis. Customer feedback is the most valuable source to BCC in driving consistent service improvement. Please see our below methods and communication in the table below.
table 3: Performance Monitoring Options
|
Option |
Description |
|---|---|
|
Survey feedback and actions report |
We ask that you complete our bi-monthly automated survey. Please do take the time to give us information will help us to steer developments and conduct checks on services to ensure constantly delivery to the individual service descriptions. |
|
Schools Support Forums and Focus Groups |
We invite you to participate in these meetings to hear updates on our service performance overall and longer-term development plans. |
Complaints
Where possible a complaint should be made with the view to seeking and securing the service delivery and performance expected. In the event that having followed the service support levels listed in table 2 and you are still dissatisfied with the service received please consider the available options below:
table 4: Complaints procedures
|
Option |
Description |
|---|---|
|
Immediate escalation (outside formal BCC complaints process) |
If you are not satisfied with the response you have received following the normal support process, but do not want to raise a formal complaint you should email businessservicesplus@buckscc.gov.uk and provide details of your concerns and any supporting material. This email address is monitored regularly on a daily basis and we will ensure that we follow up with you directly. |
|
Immediate escalation (formal BCC escalation process) |
If you want to raise a formal complaint through the BCC corporate complaints process please email CC Complaints Mailbox cccomplaints@buckscc.gov.uk and provide details of your concerns and any supporting material. Your complaint will be dealt with within 30 days. |
Termination of a service
In the event that you wish to terminate a service with us, it would be helpful to us to know why you wish to bring the agreement to an end.
If you wish to terminate any of your annual packages before the specified contract end date, a minimum notice period of 3 months is required and you could be subject to early termination fees. Fees for early termination will vary depending on the particular service. Please refer to the specific service descriptors for each package regarding all termination arrangements.
Please provide a written Notice of termination on school headed paper signed by the Headteacher outlining reason to move to alternative supplier.
Signatories to SLA for Support Services provided by Buckinghamshire Business Services Plus (Buckinghamshire County Council)
On behalf of Buckinghamshire County Council,
Signed:
Jonathon Noble
Commercial Director
Date: August 2016
On behalf of:
Declaration:
As school signatory I declare that I have the relevant delegated authority to sign this agreement on behalf of the school.
Signed: ……………………………………………………………………….
Print name: …………………………………………………………………..
Headteacher: ……………….……………………… Date: ………………….