The Real Reason Things Aren’t Getting Done (and It’s Not What You Think)

When I sit down with an estate team at a multi-academy trust (or a large independent school), a common theme emerges. It often begins as a discussion about budget, with most teams understandably focused on their limited financial resources. But as we delve deeper, another challenge comes to light: the struggle to balance the operational needs of a central estate team with the individual requirements of each school. As it turns out, this balancing act can be just as complex as the budgeting process itself.

The truth is, each school within a trust has specific requirements to ensure its facilities support the best possible learning environment. However, the central estate team must keep the entire estate safe, compliant, and functioning smoothly—often under strict financial constraints. It’s a dynamic tension that leaves many asking: how can trusts bridge this gap to manage their estates effectively and keep progress moving?

Aligning Central and School-Level Priorities

First and foremost, it’s essential to acknowledge that each school’s needs are urgent and valid. Schools advocate for the resources they believe are essential for their staff and pupils. On the other side, the central estate team, faced with strict compliance standards and finite resources, must prioritise the most critical issues across all sites.

A centralised team’s priorities often focus on overarching concerns:

• Ensuring statutory compliance across the entire estate
  
  
• Maintaining safety standards to prevent risks or shutdowns
  
  
• Meeting CDM (Construction Design and Management) regulations, especially on significant projects
  
  
• Extending asset longevity to manage long-term budgets effectively
  
  

For individual schools, however, priorities may focus more on local improvements, such as:

• Creating welcoming and engaging learning environments
  
  
• Addressing specific maintenance issues promptly
  
  
• Enhancing facilities to align with curriculum needs, from music rooms to science labs

These differences in priorities can lead to friction. However, when trusts embrace a collaborative approach, they can identify ways to meet both central and local goals, easing tension and moving initiatives forward.

Data-Driven Decision-Making: A Key to Fair Allocation

Data-driven processes are instrumental in fostering collaboration within a trust. When decisions are grounded in objective data rather than intuition, trust and a sense of fairness increase across the board.

Here are some effective approaches:

• Condition Surveys: Regular surveys across all school sites create a factual baseline for each asset’s condition, helping the trust prioritise needs objectively. Trusts that leverage reliable surveys often find their decision-making processes simplified and transparent.
  
  
• Compliance Management Tools: Staying on top of compliance is a continuous challenge. With significant portions of the UK’s school estate in need of repair—up to 85%, according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS)—proactive monitoring of compliance indicators, from electrical checks to fire safety, ensures issues are flagged early and addressed according to need.
  
  
• Long-Term Capital Planning: By planning based on data about asset age, condition, and estimated lifespans, trusts can create strategic capital plans, smoothing out spikes in costs and addressing school-specific needs on a timeline that balances urgency with financial feasibility.

Effective Communication: Building a Shared Understanding

Data is vital, but so is clear, open communication between the central team and school leaders. Trusts that facilitate open discussions—through regular meetings, shared software, or a feedback system—tend to build a stronger mutual understanding of priorities.

Strategies to encourage this include:

• Regular Priority Meetings: These meetings can help identify upcoming projects, align with the academic calendar, and adjust to evolving priorities.
  
  
• A Shared Digital Platform: A centralised tool for work requests, condition assessments, and compliance records provides a shared space for all parties to view updates, ask questions, and see where each project sits within the wider trust plan.
  
  
• Feedback Loops for Transparency: When the estate team receives input from schools and shares how decisions are made, schools are more likely to trust and support those decisions, even if every request cannot be fulfilled immediately.

Shifting Perspectives: Embracing a Unified Goal

At its core, effective estate management requires everyone to see themselves as part of a single team working toward the same goal: creating the best possible environment for pupils. Trusts that foster this perspective often find that even with limited budgets, they can make substantial progress in addressing estate needs.

Changing perspectives isn’t always immediate, but by recognising shared goals, more trusts succeed in creating proactive management plans that support both specific school needs and trust-wide objectives.

Final Thoughts

The best solutions for estate management in a trust setting are rarely one-size-fits-all. However, a central estate team that leverages data, prioritises clear communication, and fosters a shared understanding within the trust is well-positioned for success. By developing processes that balance compliance and quality with each school’s unique needs, progress becomes more achievable. In finding this balance, estate teams and schools discover that effective estate management not only sustains facilities but actively supports the educational mission.

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