There are several reasons why monitoring the performance of your estate is helpful. The first is to ensure that your assets are performing to their technical specification. I’m sure that many of us have experienced a sudden and unanticipated boiler failure, but if your mechanical assets have been regularly inspected and maintained, such a situation should be unlikely to occur. Another reason for monitoring the performance of your estate is the potential impact of not doing so on teaching and learning. For example, it is difficult for students to concentrate if they’re in a cold learning environment.
Other reasons include being able to assess the effectiveness of your assets, how they contribute to the financial efficiency of your estate, and what impact this information may have for future decision making. For example, lagging heating pipework to avoid heat loss is a simple and cost-effective intervention which will reduce energy usage and, therefore, reduce the amount of money being spent to heat a building. Each school may have a number of different building types and associated assets so where should you begin? The Department for Education’s document How to begin estate performance management and benchmarking sets out a useful approach and the guidance below is based on this document.
Step 1 – Identify what performance measures would assist you in managing your estate’s performance
This will depend upon the age, construction type, and state of your buildings and assets, so looking at your building condition surveys is a good place to start.
Factors to consider may include:
- Safety – Are any of your buildings and assets judged to be unsafe? For example, if you have high walls that appear to be leaning, a suitably qualified surveyor can advise on what action to take in order to track any movement. The results may indicate that the wall should be rebuilt.
- Condition improvement – What actions should be taken to improve the condition of your buildings and assets to prevent deterioration and sub-optimal performance? For example, multi-use games areas require regular maintenance in order to maintain them in a good condition.
- Financial – Which buildings and assets cost the most to run and maintain and what action can be taken to reduce the costs? For example, draughty buildings cost more to heat so a remedial programme of draft reduction should be considered.
- Environmental sustainability – What activities from your buildings and assets have the most detrimental impact on environmental sustainability? For example, buying energy efficient white goods such as fridges and freezers will reduce electricity usage and carbon emissions.
Step 2 – Consider what data you will need to measure performance
Having identified what your priorities will be for monitoring performance you now need to identify the following for each priority:
- What data will facilitate the monitoring of performance?
- Where can I find this data and how much time will be required to collate it?
- What format will the data be in and how much time will be required to turn it into useful information?
- What actions could result from analysing the information?
- Can the information be used to compare the performance of different buildings and assets?
- Is the information in such a format that it can be used to compare against other schools?
For example, analysing energy costs can be facilitated by energy usage statistics. This information may be available from your energy supplier, but if not, the information can be taken from energy invoices and collated onto a spreadsheet. If you’re only analysing energy costs for one school this may be time well spent, but if you have 10 schools or more, this could be quite a time-consuming exercise.
Benchmarking a year’s worth of energy data will demonstrate seasonal variations and allow you to implement energy reduction targets for the forthcoming year. When comparing energy usage across different buildings, the age, construction type, and type of assets employed in each building will need to be considered. For example, the cost of energy in a modern building with solar panels will obviously be very different from that of a Victorian building without solar panels. So instead of comparing the actual cost of energy, it may be more helpful to compare the amount of energy being used.
Step 3 – Develop a process for monitoring the performance of your chosen building and asset priorities
To do this, you will need to:
- Establish the baseline performance for each priority against which future performance can be compared.
- Develop a standardised reporting framework so that performance comparisons are carried out on a like for like basis, and data and information collated and presented in a consistent manner.
- Identify how information from different buildings in terms of their usage, age, construction and asset types can usefully be compared. For example, comparing the amount of money spent on maintenance and emergency call outs for different heating systems in different buildings may lead to more useful outcomes than comparing the cost per se of heating each building.
- Identify performance targets for each of your priorities such as reducing electricity usage by 2% over the course of a term.
- Review what information your performance monitoring has given you and what it has been used for. If it has not led to any impactful outcomes, reflect on the reasons for this and what different action you could take.
Step 4 – Compare the performance of your chosen building and asset priorities with other schools
All schools are different so there is never going to be a best fit comparison option with other schools. However, based on your local knowledge, you may be able to identify a school which has similar buildings in terms of size, construction type, and assets which you could compare your data against. You may find in comparing data that your school is spending considerably more in an area such as water usage which may lead you to suspect that you have an underground water leak. Even if comparable data isn’t available, it’s always useful to have a conversation with other schools regarding what initiatives they have put in place that have increased the performance of their estate and what the impact of this has been.
Where to find further information
The following documents produced by the Department for Education can be accessed via the weblinks below:
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