GovWire

Effective maintenance of the college estate will help you ensure that you provide safe, warm and weatherproof environments for staff, students and visitors.

College buildings are an important and valuable long-term asset which need to be looked after. Poor or irregular maintenance of college buildings can result in:

• disruption of education
• closure or partial closure of your buildings
• invalidation of your insurance
• poor value for money
• unnecessary expenditure to rectify problems
• shorter building life
• risks to the health, safety, and welfare of your learners, staff and visitors
• legal claims
• non-compliance with regulations

You can reduce these risks through effective and well-planned maintenance of the college estate.

Types of maintenance

Maintenance is typically categorised in 2 ways:

• planned preventative maintenance (PPM)
• reactive maintenance

Planned preventative maintenance is:

• works and activities carried out to keep your land and property in a good state of repair, and to prevent building condition or equipment failure
• works carried out to fulfil a legal duty
• regular activities undertaken regardless of condition, such as servicing plant and maintenance, and cleaning of rainwater goods

Reactive maintenance is:

• works and activities not covered through planned or cyclical maintenance
• works to fix unexpected problems such as accidental damage to land or buildings vandalism
• dealing with sudden failure of equipment or a building component
• addressing urgent health and safety needs

You should assess the condition of your estate through regular condition surveys. You can start to plan and prioritise your colleges maintenance activities based on this.

Maintenance planning

Well-planned maintenance will help you:

• keep your building users safe and secure
• prolong the life of your estate
• get value for money from your maintenance spending

To plan maintenance effectively, you should have a good understanding of the buildings within your estate. This information should be held alongside your asset register and should include:

• basic building information including gross internal areas, building use, age, and method of construction
• plans of the buildings with useful information, such as fire safety measures, location of hydrants, utility meters and incoming services
• plans of the sites with utilities information, such as mains drainage, stopcocks, cabling, and isolation points
• an inventory of important components, such as boilers and pipework, and their life expectancy
• up-to-date statutory compliance records
• a schedule of maintenance contracts, such as annual portable appliance testing (PAT), gas safety, boiler maintenance and fire measures
• building condition surveys
• asbestos register and asbestos management plan
• details of any listed buildings and conservation or heritage designations which may affect maintenance works

The plan should include:

• all regular planned preventative maintenance
• any planned capital or investment projects

The contents of your maintenance plan will flow from your condition survey data.

Prioritising maintenance works

You will need to prioritise works in your maintenance plan, taking account of:

• any legal duties and responsibilities
• works which may impact health, safety, safeguarding or security
• works impacting the envelope of the building, electrical or mechanical services (such as heating)
• condition grading indicating the likelihood of failure
• risk assessment, including impact of element failure and the consequences of not addressing the need
• available resources

Take account of the findings of regular maintenance cycles when planning longer-term works. This allows you to plan and budget effectively, minimising the risk of failure.

In addition to maintenance checks on building services, you may need to consider other activities such as:

• food hygiene and catering requirements
• service and maintenance of specialist machinery and equipment
• general health, safety and security management
• safety signage
• maintenance of CCTV and security equipment

Timing of works

Consider how and when each element of the maintenance plan should be implemented. For example, for reasons of health and safety or access, some works cannot reasonably be completed during term time.

Statutory examination and inspection, testing and maintenance

You will need to inspect and test your buildings, plant and equipment as part of your maintenance regime.

If necessary, you should take professional advice to ensure that your estate is statutorily compliant. You should keep safety certificates and details of all statutory examinations, testing and remedial work alongside your asset register.

Advice on collecting and storing estate documentation is available. The certification and information you should hold for the estate will vary depending on the specific construction type and building services installed.

There are some major items of fabric, plant and equipment likely to be present in all colleges, including:

• boilers (and other gas installations and equipment)
• electrical fixed wiring and equipment
• water systems
• fire and security systems
• catering equipment
• air conditioning systems
• asbestos
• lifts
• local exhaust ventilation (LEV) extraction systems, including kitchen extracts
• gym equipment

Health and safety law and maintenance

You need to be aware of health and safety issues when you manage and maintain land and buildings.

The safety of all users of the estate, including contractors, is very important. You need to understand what your responsibilities are.

This is a complex area. You should refer to specialist guidance, seeking independent professional advice if necessary. There is more information on legal duties and responsibilities.

Fire safety

College premises, accommodation and facilities should be maintained to a standard that ensures, so far as is reasonable, the health, safety and welfare of learners and staff.

New building work must comply with the Building Regulations 2010 on fire safety. This can be achieved by following the relevant building regulations.

The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (FSO) imposes duties on employers and persons with control of college premises. You must have an appropriate and up-to-date fire risk assessment for all premises under your control.

This will include:

• ensuring procedures are in place to reduce the likelihood of fire
• maintaining fire detection and alarm systems
• familiarising staff and learners with emergency evacuation procedures

See fire safety in the workplace for more information.

The FSO states that you must review the fire risk assessment regularly, and particularly when there is reason to suspect it is no longer valid or where significant changes to the premises or use take place.

In addition, the final repo

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