Buying security systems by direct procurement in schools and institutions

When is direct procurement used?

The Public Procurement Law defines several tender procedures; direct procurement is not one of them, but a route that allows purchasing without a tender in certain cases. The best known of these cases is when the purchase amount is below the monetary limit set in the law and updated every year.

We do not give an amount limit in this article, because the limits change by year and type of administration. Whether your purchase is eligible for this method is decided by the purchasing and accounting staff of the unit your school reports to. Deliberately splitting a job into small parts and buying each part separately through direct procurement is a practice the regulations clearly require you to avoid.

Expert note: Splitting the cameras, recorder and cabling into separate invoices may seem practical. If they are parts of the same need, talk to your purchasing unit before doing this.

Define the need in writing

"16 cameras for the school" is not a description of a need. Write down which doors, corridors and parts of the schoolyard will be monitored, how long recordings will be kept and who will watch them. The camera at the school entrance should be able to distinguish students' faces; the camera in the schoolyard should see a wide area. These two cameras need a different lens and position.

A short needs note lets you give the same information to the companies you ask for quotes. That way you can compare the quotes you receive with each other.

When writing the note, also think about the school at night. If the yard and the entrance gate are left in the dark when the school empties in the evening, the camera's infrared range or the need for extra lighting should be added to the note. Night-time theft and vandalism often happen in these dark areas.

• Points to be monitored and the purpose of each
• Recording retention period
• Location of the monitoring screen and authorized people
• Existing cabling, cabinet and power infrastructure
• Connection to the alarm, bell or PA system, if any

How should you collect quotes?

In direct procurement, market price research is also done and the quotes are documented. To make quotes comparable, give every company the same needs note and ask for itemized prices: cameras, recorder, disks, switch, cable, ducts, labor, training.

Single-line "turnkey" quotes make comparison harder. One company may have included the cabling and another may not. Disk capacity differences mean different recording times; the lowest price sometimes reflects the shortest recording time.

Invite the companies you will ask for quotes to the school so they can see the site. Quotes prepared without seeing the school usually estimate cable distances and ceiling structure. A company that has seen the site can make clear in its quote, for example, whether the camera on the garden wall needs a pole or where the cable will run.

Points specific to school buildings

Camera placement in schools KVKK also makes this especially sensitive. Areas such as toilets, changing rooms and counseling rooms should stay out of coverage. Cameras inside classrooms are a contested topic; if there is such a request, first find out the approach of the directorate your school reports to.

In old school buildings, the cable route, the ceiling structure and the condition of the electrical panel affect installation time and cost. Since noisy work cannot be done during class hours, plan the installation schedule around holidays or weekends. For schools in Şanlıurfa's districts, ask about outdoor housings for garden cameras that withstand summer heat and dust.

Acceptance and handover

When the installation is finished, test the system before paying. Check each camera's daytime and nighttime image, confirm that the retention period you specified is set on the device, and try searching for and finding an old recording. If viewing by phone has been set up, find out which accounts it uses.

At handover, get the device list, the camera layout plan, a handover record of user names and passwords, and the warranty documents. The most common problem in schools is that nobody knows the system password after the principal changes or the computer teacher is reassigned.

Decide who will use the system at the school and ask for a short training session. The assistant principal and at least one staff member should be able to find and export the recording from a given time. Having to call the company to find a recording after a parent complaint or an incident in the schoolyard makes the system useless.

Common mistakes in schools

A few years after a camera system is installed at a school, the most common sentence heard is “there's no recording.” The disk failed and the device had not been recording for months, but nobody noticed. At handover, have the recorder set to give a warning when a disk fails, and decide who that warning goes to.

Another mistake is watching the camera image only on a screen in the principal's office, where nobody looks. A screen where the teacher on duty or the custodial staff can see the entrance gate turns the camera into a tool used in daily work.

Buying the alarm and cameras from different companies at different times also causes problems; the two systems stay unaware of each other. Simple links, such as the related camera's image arriving on a phone when the alarm goes off while the school is on holiday, are possible when the whole is planned from the start.

• Disk failure warning left turned off
• Only staff who have left know the password
• Garden camera left without night lighting
• Recorder kept in an unlocked cabinet

Purchases funded by donations and benefactors

At some schools, the security system is bought with the support of a benefactor or the school-parent association. In that case too, a needs note, comparative quotes and an acceptance test are just as necessary. Accepting and recording a donation are subject to separate rules; clarify these steps with your directorate.

Expert note: This article describes the general framework. For the procurement method, monetary limits and documents, consult your institution's legal unit, procurement staff or an expert in public procurement legislation.

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