Schools will be “expected” to secure management information system (MIS) suppliers through a new government framework from next year. Today’s announcement comes after Schools Week revealed last year that ministers were looking to shield schools from the £200 million MIS turf war by creating the new purchasing route. The move is part of the Department for Education’s “maximising value for pupils” programme – a wide-ranging scheme aiming to boost “investment in the school system, so every pound delivers for children”. Speaking this afternoon, education secretary Bridget Phillipson said: “Our new framework means schools no longer have to do it themselves. “We are stepping in to support them to drive down costs, protect pupils’ data, and lift the burden so the school workforce can focus on what they came into the job to do.” 2027 target The department told leaders in November it understands buying MIS “can be difficult”, as it looked “to create a simpler purchasing route that reduces costs and legal risks with suppliers”. Slides shown during a DfE webinar the same month said officials want to ensure data “flow[s] smoothly across school, trust, local authority and national levels”. They also hope to “ease” information transfers when schools move trusts and simplify “contract exit around [the] transfer of data while protecting relevant supplier IP”. And now the government has said all schools with “sufficient broadband” will be expected to procure their MIS through the framework from September 2027 “under a comply or explain approach”. The framework is due to be published next summer. ‘Buying power’ Schools “should not break existing contracts”. Instead, they will be expected to “identify when their current agreement expires and plan their transition accordingly”. DfE added the framework will give officials “the collective buying power of 22,000 schools”. Currently, most schools secure their MIS – which is their “core administrative software” containing pupil data, like attendance figures, safeguarding records and SEND data – independently. This, the department said, creates “unpredictable price increases, unclear exit clauses, inconsistent data security standards, and significant administrative burden — diverting time and resource away from teaching and learning”. Procurement ‘minefield’ Education consultant Duncan Baldwin previously argued that “navigating procurement for these systems is a minefield” for many schools. “If this framework provides a simpler, less risky route then it’s a good thing, so long as fairness and openness for suppliers is maintained,” he said. “Nobody – schools or suppliers – wants the complexity and cost of legal wrangles.” The emergence of cloud-based suppliers has led to big changes in the MIS world, estimated to be worth about £200 million. SIMS, which has long dominated the sector, has seen its market share shrink to 34 per cent, down from 74 per cent in 2021, according to analysis by the Bring More Data blog. It has been eclipsed by Arbor (39 per cent), while rival Bromcom’s share now sits at 16 per cent. Legal fights The changing hand in suppliers has led to high-profile legal disputes. United Learning Trust, England’s biggest trust, lost a high court battle with Bromcom in 2023 after a judge ruled the business should have won a £2 million MIS contract. This was despite ministers handing ULT £1 million to challenge Bromcom as it tried to protect the wider academy sector, amid claims the firm had “a history of litigiousness”, trust correspondence with the government said. Ali Guryel, Bromcom’s executive chair, previously said the “litigious” comment was “unfair and defamatory”. Lift Schools, previously called Academies Enterprise Trust, settled a three-year legal battle with Bromcom just over 12 months ago. The Competition and Markets Authority was pulled into a dispute two years ago after SIMS announced its customers would be breaching their contracts if they sent copies of their databases to third parties. The watchdog later closed the probe, saying intervention is “not currently needed”.