I'll take em off their hands...
...for nuffin!
Welsh council's unused mountain of 2,400 laptops
A Welsh council kept 2,400 laptops, which were supposed to be used by school pupils, in storage for at least a year because it couldn't figure out what to do with the kit. Torfaen County Borough Council bought a batch of 8,642 laptops in March last year for itself, Monmouthshire council and Newport council. Torfaen footed the …
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Monday 5th November 2012 13:13 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: I'll take em off their hands...
You really want 2400 laptops with 'ch', 'dd', 'ff', 'ng', 'll', 'ph', 'rh' and 'th' keys, but no 'x' for reaching those naughty domains?
(sent from a town where a garage proudly advertises its expertise in the fields of Teiars, Batris, Egsosts, Siocs and Brecs. It's another country over here ; )
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Monday 5th November 2012 11:03 GMT Magister
This may seem bizarre ...
... but is quite common within the public sector. Someone negotiates a deal for a really good price without actually knowing what they need or what for.
They can't sell them as they will end up losing money and will then get criticised for wasting public money. They can't give them away for the same reason. You'd think that they could just give them some schools, but that would cause a fuss with those schools that don't get any. They could then try to charge the schools; but the schools will probably refuse if it comes out of their budgets as they would rather have new equipment and don't want anyone's cast offs.
They are buggered whatever they do. Welcome to the world of the modern civil service
(disclaimer: I don't work in the public sector although I was a school governor for a long time and had far too many dealings with LEA and othrr LGA.)
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Monday 5th November 2012 11:17 GMT 0laf
couple of reasons this probably happened. Educational and Council licenses are not the same so they wouldn't be able to shift a bunch of latops from the Corporate side into Education without sorting that out with MS. Also just to reimage the laptop would take quite a bit of time. Since the ICO will fine you (a lot) if a laptop is nicked and found to be holding personal information these laptops would have to be properly wiped and reimaged taking even longer. If their IT department is under-resourced, which is pretty much the norm now, they wouldn't have the people to do the reimaging never mind a wipe.
As for selling them, the WEEE makes the Council responsible for electrical testing before they can sell and that again probably makes it uneconomical. They could have dumped them onto a professional recycling company but depending on their options that might have cost money too and storing them might have been the cheapest options.
Nothing like Government / EU / MS red tape to make something as simple as donating a laptop a frustrating, expensive exercise in futility.
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Monday 5th November 2012 11:32 GMT Anonymous Coward
Well informed
Educational and Council licenses are not the same so they wouldn't be able to shift a bunch of latops from the Corporate side into Education without sorting that out with MS
Well as they are new, I doubt they have any corporate keys on them. They most likely (I hope) either bought them devoid of OS, or with the bog standard HP image on them. Unless they paid extra for pre-imaging.
"Since the ICO will fine you (a lot) if a laptop is nicked and found to be holding personal information these laptops would have to be properly wiped and reimaged taking even longer. "
Well as these are new, I doubt they have any info on.
If their IT department is under-resourced, which is pretty much the norm now, they wouldn't have the people to do the reimaging never mind a wipe.
(Apart from above). Connect to network. Boot to PXE image. Job done. Not hard.
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Monday 5th November 2012 12:06 GMT localzuk
The devices are new as far as this article explains. It is *very* unlikely that anyone has done anything other than take delivery of them, as they were to be shipped to other councils who would then distribute to schools, who would distribute to pupils.
Each council would have their own way of setting them up, and possibly each school (will vary by school).
Also, with licensing - these devices were bought for schools. Not for corporate. So this would not be an issue. They would have been bought with the license required from HP (ie. Win 7 Pro).
Selling them would require the council to be sure the devices were safe before selling, but as they were new, boxed, due diligence would accept them in new condition as being safe - so that would deal with the electrical safety requirements.
There are also many recycling companies which would take them for free (there's also at least one education specialist reseller who would happily have bought them).
No, this is idiots buying them without having a reason at fault, not any red tape.
(I work in a school, so have to deal with this sort of nonsense).
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Monday 5th November 2012 11:44 GMT pete the trees
I'm a little puzzled by the maths. If 8642 laptops cost £9.8M grant + £2.28M from the councils, I make that a unit cost of just under £1400.
The remaining 2400 are said to be worth about £1M - a bit over £400 each. Is that supposed to be their disposal value, or has the council really wasted more like £3.36M?
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Monday 5th November 2012 12:23 GMT Robert Carnegie
They were new, now they are 18 months out of date + warranty, therefore worth less.
I think that's it.
It sounds as though Torfaen didn't have the deal signed that it thought it had with either or both of Newport and the supplier. But some other kind of fiddle is also a possible explanation.
Cunning suppliers playing tricks on schools and on local authority education departments is a perennial problem. The lease on the school office photocopier is a classic scam, very often done.
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Monday 5th November 2012 13:48 GMT Alan Brown
Re: They were new, now they are 18 months out of date + warranty, therefore worth less.
"The lease on the school office photocopier is a classic scam, very often done."
But if done properly it can easily be a lot cheaper than buying a lower spec machine.
Bear in mind that schools don't get to charge depreciation on equipment against income. Capital costs are sunk ones and if the income isn't high enough to fork out for the new gear, leasing is often the only way ouy.
OTOH it's clear that a lot of school finances are run by people who are so piss-poor at the job that the 3rd form economics class would do significantly better.
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Monday 5th November 2012 12:05 GMT JeeBee
Expensive laptops...
£12.1m pounds for under 9000 laptops, what are they, MacBook Pros?
I bet they're naff HP laptops costing aroudn £500 each, the other £700 per laptop went on "consultancy fees" and disappeared into the hundreds of meetings arranged to discuss getting them, distributing them, etc.
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Monday 5th November 2012 12:32 GMT The BigYin
What the hell?
So these "bargain" laptops weigh in at £1,400-ish? Really? Why the bloody hell to kids need laptops with that level of juice? I'd say give 'em all a RasPi (plus peripherals) but I doubt RaspPi could deliver until next year. Still, there are heaps of vendors who could sell kit for much, much less than what the council paid. Even allowing for on-site support etc.
Although I question the children needing a latop at all.
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Monday 5th November 2012 13:05 GMT Anonymous Coward
Dear Torfaen Borough Council
If the laptops are still in their packaging as delivered by HP, then you should be able to offer them for sale to your own Council Tax payers at a suitable knock-down price, subject to the understanding that they are out of warranty etc.
Too simple an idea for the bureaucrats?
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Monday 5th November 2012 15:33 GMT Marvin the Martian
Re: How much has it cost to store them this entire time?
No, no, they save on costs: they come in these excellent cardboard boxes and are stacked in large, even heaps along outside walls.
Sure, some sunlight is now lacking (leading to workers off sick with 'seasonal depression' syndromes, sadly) what with the window being blocked and so on, but no more drafts and a much warmer room by consequence.
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Monday 5th November 2012 13:29 GMT Anonymous Coward
but the real question is......?
Why are laptops even being bought for kids? When times are hard and budgets squeezed why is money being wasted on schemes like this?
Schools are just a pit to throw money in to, but I suppose nothing has changed. I left school in 1987, at the time schools were moaning they hadn’t got enough money for books (the big thing at the time) So I was somewhat surprised that a year after I left they somehow had lots of money to be spent on laying FECKING CARPET THROUGHOUT HE ENTIRE SCHOOL!!!!!
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Monday 5th November 2012 13:47 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: but the real question is......?
The "digital inclusion" agenda is a big thing that short sighted plebs chuck money at. its been around for ages and will be for the future, the problem is people who arent looking for original solultions to the question "how to do we use infomation technology in a way which is engaging to all and cheap for people who cannot afford it.
Ive seen far too many groups, councils, working bodies, etc etc etc who sit around and rub their hands together with a few hundred thousand to piss away on tech to show they are doing something.
Almost universally these groups are headed by people who just want to make interesting stats who have little or no tech knowledge, or even care in what the idea behind it is SUPPOSED to be for.
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Monday 5th November 2012 14:22 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: but the real question is......?
"Schools are just a pit to throw money in to, but I suppose nothing has changed. I left school in 1987, at the time schools were moaning they hadn’t got enough money for books (the big thing at the time) So I was somewhat surprised that a year after I left they somehow had lots of money to be spent on laying FECKING CARPET THROUGHOUT HE ENTIRE SCHOOL!!!!!"
Yet another comment thrown around by someone who more than likely has no idea what they're talking about. Prehaps laying carpet throughout the school will reduce the heating cost by a greater amount? Nevermind... Lets just have a rant.
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Tuesday 6th November 2012 10:44 GMT Michael Dunn
Re: but the real question is......?
Not enough money for books! In my school (40's vintage) the textbooks were passed on to the form below when we moved up the school. Of course the Tutorial Latin Grammar was as relevant for the next year's students as it was for us - there hasn't been much change in the language of Caesar over recent decades.
And since the transistor had not yet been discovered/invented electronics was much as it had been in pre-war days. (No KT88's or even KT66's in 1948, and cert ainly none of these "miniature" ECCxx valves.
In fact, in my first job we were using EFxx metal-cased diodes, triodes and pentodes bought from the government surplus stockists.
One of my favourite leisure-time activities was browsing H K Lewis (in Gower Street) technical shelves, with all these technology and science texts from America, set in Typescript!
How times have changed!
Where's the nostalgia icon?
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Monday 5th November 2012 14:13 GMT Steve Davies 3
Why are they 'out of warranty'?
I thought that if they are less than two years old that are still under warranty? Didn't Apple get taken to court for not honouring the EU Minimum warranty a while back(or at least not stating in letter 30px high that they did).
If so then HP must still honour their warranty... unless they were 2yrs + old to begin with.
On anothe note,
If they are HP then they will have crap screens so the council will probably have to pay a load of dosh to get someone to take them away.
Ok, so not a grammar alert but it is to do with (We don't need no...) Education
Wacko Rules Ok!
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Monday 5th November 2012 15:14 GMT Chris D Rogers
I hail from Torfaen, so can't say I'm too happy with this balls up.
Further, why give the money to HP, they'd have been better off investing in Apple products, be it the iPad2 or 13in Macbook Pro - who the hell wishes to be seen with a HP laptop - obviously, if LINUX was installed on them it may make a difference, but the reality is, HP probably stuffed who ever purchased this piece of trash.
No wonder our bloody Council Tax is more than £100 per month - at the same time whilst wasting money on this, the council laid off a large swathe of its workforce - the fool who worded out this bargain though probably still has a job.
Fecking idiots ia all I can say.
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Monday 5th November 2012 15:14 GMT Anonymous Coward
Nothing new
This really is nothing new, just we heard about this particular scandal. Try using the budget for free lunches for poor students being used to buy the sixth form 100 ipad 2s. That they bought direct from an apple store with no educational discount, then not being allowed on the school network till 100£ per ipad was paid to rm.
They are still in the boxes.
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Tuesday 6th November 2012 11:17 GMT Michael Dunn
Re: Not surprised..
"SRS Business Solutions" I just cannot see what this "local undefined sinecure" has to do with the actual council. I can remember being in school in Farnborough (Hants) back in '42: the "urban district council" consisted of the elected councillors (called aldermen in those days), the Town Clerk, who ran the whole shebang, and the actual workers who did the business. Possibly their budget was in the 100's of pounds per month.
Aldermen got expenses, i.e. re-imbursement of money they had actually paid out in the pursuit of their duties - bus fares (yes, aldermen actually travelled by bus in those days). They didn't ge3t an "allowance", they worked for tghe benefit of the community. OK, so sometimes (even often) the benefit of the community coincided with the benefit of the firms they ran or worked for as their day-job. But, then, the "revolving door" for politicians and civil servants was not as blatant as it is now.
I've never understood why a town the size of XXXham needs a council payroll of some 10% of its inhabitants.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
