Ridge hosted an Education Estates panel discussion in Manchester to unpack the governance implications of the Department for Education’s “decade of national renewal”
How to bridge the gap between the Department for Education’s promise of “a decade of national renewal” and an ageing school estate in poor condition?
That was the topic of an Education Estates breakfast event at the Ridge Manchester office in June, where an expert panel discussed the governance challenges facing school and college leaders, and how they can rise to meet new responsibilities.
In February, the DfE published its ten-year plan for the education estate, based around a shift away from reactive short-term fixes, in favour of a long-term, strategic approach. It prioritises refurbishment of existing buildings where possible, data-led capital allocation, and stronger integration of SEND, early years and community infrastructure. These are big changes, placing additional pressure on estates and operational teams that are already stretched near to breaking point, and greater responsibility on leadership teams.
To drill down into what this means, a multidisciplinary Ridge team made up of architect and education lead Alice Parker, drone specialist Mike Edwards and building surveyor Daniel Duce were joined by Matty Pendergast, director of capital projects at the University of Salford, Julie Lawson, founder of Education Compliance Solutions, and Melanie Stokes, founder of Legacy Governance Solutions – between them bringing decades of experience across the education sector and beyond, in project delivery, strategy and governance.
Takeaway #1: Education leaders need to skill up
The DfE’s call for more strategic management of estates means that “Responsible Bodies” – including academy trusts, local authorities, boards of governors and church dioceses – should be much more involved in decisions that might previously have been deferred to operational teams. There are skills gaps throughout estate management, but increasing capability and expertise at a leadership level will be essential for driving up standards.
A lot of people automatically associate estate strategy with higher education. But multi-academy trusts (MATs) can have significant portfolios. They might have acquired a group of schools or grown over time but before they know it, they’re managing a very large estate.”
Alice Parker
Architect and Education Lead, Ridge
As estate management becomes more strategic, it should also become more human-centric: ultimately, it’s not just about maintaining buildings, but taking care of the people who are working and learning in them.
Predominantly estates has been an operational issue, and we need to reframe that. A building is a huge strategic asset for delivering teaching and learning to a high standard, and all the pastoral elements too. It’s time for local authorities, dioceses, MATs to look at what their core purpose is, and whether their buildings serve their children and their community.”
Julie Lawson
Founder, Education Compliance Solutions
Takeaway #2: Consistency is important for managing project costs
Future DfE funding will be distributed based on data about school estates, submitted on annual basis. But more up-to-date information will also be invaluable for day-to-day management, for anticipating future maintenance, and staying ahead of rising project costs. Fundamentally, this will require much greater consistency in the way data is captured, stored and interpreted, and in how knowledge is transferred when someone moves on.
In a volatile construction market, better information will help to maintain value, especially on reuse projects, said Matty. There are always unknowns with existing buildings, and compliance with building and safety regulations can be harder to achieve:
The risk appetite from contractors on refurbishments is going to be a real challenge. We openly share benchmarking cost data and lessons learned in the higher education sector, but we should look to do that more widely across the wider education sector. Cost data and key challenges are similar regardless of whether you are a higher, further, secondary or primary education provider.”
Matty Pendergast
Director of Capital Projects, University of Salford
Being proactive and engaging more consistently with suppliers would also help to manage costs, said Daniel.
Too often, minor works programmes are planned too late so contractors are already booked up. If you take a longer-term partnership approach, you can plan over one, three, five years, and there’s visibility of the estate strategy and delivery plan, so the contractor and subcontractor labour is already identified.”
Daniel Duce
Building Surveyor, Ridge
Takeaway #3: Digital twins and AI will empower governance teams
Estates strategy is a big undertaking for school teams on top of their day job, but they can put the onus on partners supplying information – contractors and consultants – to do so in a way that supports dynamic rather than static reporting.
Mike explained how Ridge is already working with public sector organisations to produce “digital twins” of their assets, where data from many sources is combined in a single, constantly updated model. In the “very near” future he added, asset owners and operators will be able to talk to these models using natural language – asking them to identify priorities across the estate, in the same way as CoPilot can already help with daily tasks.
It’s not good enough to be piling loads and loads of data onto decision makers, there needs to be an intelligence layer to extract the relevant information when it’s required.”
Mike Edwards
Head of Digital Survey, Ridge
For Melanie, the potential benefits for governance and accountability were immediately apparent:
I’m really excited about the ability to ask the ‘so what’ questions about information that’s put in front of us. If we’re being asked to approve a capital works programme, we’ll be able to query whether we’re really spending money in the best way, and what other options there are.”
Melanie Stokes
Founder, Legacy Governance Solutions
The bottom line: Everyone has a role to play
The DfE’s vision is a big leap forward from where estates are at today, and many different stakeholders are implicated in the transformation.
It’s good that the framework has been put in place. Now everyone needs to take a positive approach for it to move forwards. We will see significant improvement if we all work together.”
Alice Parker
Architect and Education Lead, Ridge
The biggest takeaway from the morning was the need for teams at every level to work together, from the board to the boots on the ground.
Let's talk
Ridge is here to help. We encourage estates teams and school leaders to speak to us in advance of commissioning work, as that dialogue helps us to understand the pain points of their stakeholders and start to map out the route to a more efficient education estate.
Alice Parker is a partner and education lead (schools) at Ridge, based in Manchester. You can reach Alice at aliceparker@ridge.co.uk.
Mike Edwards is a partner in the building surveying team at Ridge, developing new ways of using drone technology to help organisations better understand their estates. He’s on mikeedwards@ridge.co.uk.
Daniel Duce is a senior associate at Ridge and head of the building surveying team in the Leeds office. Email Daniel on danielduce@ridge.co.uk.
