Rules for the Schools sector

Except for independent schools (which are eligible to apply for federation membership in their own right), in the schools sector the organisation eligible for membership is the Local Authority, which joins the Federation on behalf of the schools for which it has responsibility. The Local Authority will normally nominate one of its officers as Management Contact, even where it outsources technical provision to an external agent.

A group of Local Authorities may devolve operational responsibility to a consortium such as a Regional Broadband Consortium (RBC) or a Grid for Learning. In this case, the Local Authority’s Management Contact will nominate a responsible contact in the RBC or Grid to act as Administrative Contact. In general, the Local Authority will retain responsibility for the registration of Security Domains which it will authorise the consortium to use in attribute assertions. (Typically, each school is assigned its own DNS name which is used as its Security Domain. The Local Authority will inform the federation operator of the DNS names of schools for which it is responsible.)

Exceptionally, the Local Authority may devolve full managerial responsibility to the consortium, and nominate an officer of the consortium to act as its Management Contact. In this case the consortium itself is authorised to register the Security Domains subsequently used in attribute assertions. The federation operator is not responsible for ensuring that appropriate contracts are in place between the Local Authority and the consortium.