Department For Education
The condition and functional suitability of your college estate can have a significant impact on your students, staff and overall effectiveness and sustainability. At the time of passing from local authority control to their establishment as independent corporate bodies (incorporation) in 1993, colleges inherited an extensive portfolio of properties. Many were in a poor state of repair and some were simply not fit for purpose.
Since incorporation the curriculum model for further education (FE) has changed significantly, and this process is likely to continue, or accelerate, in response to changes in:
- national priorities and skills needs
- advances in digital technologies
- the challenge of net zero carbon
Preparation of an estates strategy should be an integral part of your strategic planning process. It should be informed by your overall strategic plan as well as a clearly articulated and up-to-date curriculum strategy that outlines current requirements and a forward view.
Other strategy documents should also be taken into consideration when creating a strategic plan such as strategies for:
- IT and digital infrastructure
- sustainability
- finance
- curriculum
- teaching and learning
Your estates strategy should be reviewed and refreshed at least every 3 years. An up-to-date estates strategy is often a condition for capital grant applications, but this should not be the sole driver for commissioning an estates strategy.
Effective practice point
Rushed strategies, compiled to respond to a live capital bidding round, risk paying insufficient attention to identifying and evaluating robust options. In the past, investment has too often been used to fund sub-optimal projects that have minimal long-term benefits and fail to address the most critical shortcomings in the college estate.
Key components of a college estates strategy
There is no standard specification for the contents of an estates strategy. In practice, the depth and breadth of documents can vary considerably from college to college.
Whilst a degree of local flexibility and customisation may be appropriate, your strategy should typically include the following components.
- Stage 1: vision and strategic aims for your estate
- Stage 2: strategic review of your current estate
- Stage 3: priorities for meeting the needs of your curriculum
- Stage 4: options generation
- Stage 5: options evaluation
- Stage 6: recommendations and action plan
Depending on the quality and availability of estates data, a comprehensive refresh of your estates strategy can typically take up to six months to complete. Many colleges commission external professional advice and support to complete their strategies. This external expertise is often invaluable, particularly in cases where internal estates resources are limited.
Effective practice point
Notwithstanding the potential benefits of external input to the estates strategy, you should ensure that there is sufficient engagement in and ownership of the strategy by governors, college leaders and managers.
Whilst sign-off of the final estates strategy by your board is important, there should be ample opportunity for input by your governors at formative stages of the process.
Stage 1: vision and strategic aims for your estate
The vision for your estate should be a short, high-level statement aligned with your strategic plan and the educational aims and objectives defined in your curriculum strategy both of which should ideally be updated before detailed work commences on the estates strategy. Both of these documents will need to have taken account of national, regional and local policy drivers and reflect engagement with key external stakeholders to ensure responsiveness to skills needs.
The estates vision should provide strategic direction, guide the completion of your estates strategy, and inform decisions about future investment and options for rationalisation or reconfiguration.
Supporting strategic aims might typically cover:
- aspects of the teaching and learning environment
- new delivery models or ways of working
- configuration of your estate
- minimising excess floorspace and the associated costs
- maximising efficient utilisation
- environmental and financial sustainability
Alongside your vision and strategic aims, you should consider the potential benefits of setting a limited number of key performance indicators (KPIs) or critical success factors to help monitor your estates strategy and subsequent outcomes.
Effective practice point
Property advisers recommend a visioning workshop with your governors and senior leaders as a good way of determining your estates vision and ensuring there is a high level of buy-in from the corporation, before detailed work on your estates strategy progresses.
Case study: Trafford College Group (TCG)
The Trafford College Group (TCG) 2018 to 2021 accommodation strategy was informed by a clear and well-articulated vision for the curriculum, underpinned by five key principles:
- alignment to requirements of the labour market and Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) priorities
- focusing on high quality, excellence and innovation
- partnership working with local employers, councils and other stakeholders
- technical specialisation at level 3 and above aligned with national and local priorities
- inclusion of learners with poor prior attainment and special educational needs (SEN)
The curriculum vision and planning that guides the accommodation strategy is an example of effective practice, particularly in the way opportunities for specialisation and rationalisation across the multiple campuses in the group have helped the college to reduce surplus space and maintain sustainable group sizes.
Read the full TCG case study to find out more about how theyve managed their estate.
Stage 2: strategic review of the current estate
The second stage is to conduct a structured assessment of your current college estate to assess how well the current estate is performing and the extent to which it is fit for purpose.
Typical coverage includes:
- a description of each campus (where there is more than one site) and a summary of each building including floor plan, its location, tenure, main use and any known issues
- an assessment of current space utilisation, condition, functional suitability and environmental impact.
There is more information on further education sustainable estates.
Effective practice point
When calculating space utilisation, you should consider the risks involved when relying solely on planned guided learning hours from the individualised learner record (ILR).
Property advisers recommend triangulating planned data with actual timetable data and physical room utilisation surveys to confirm the reliability of planned data. Not all students attend every lesson; in many cases your actual space utilisation levels can be materially lower than suggested by planned data.
Case study: Trafford College Group (TCG)
TCG commissioned external consultants to undertake a detailed utilisation exercise in 2018, to inform the design and specification of their plans for redevelopment of the Stockport campus, having questioned the findings from a previous study carried out pre-merger.
This highlighted very low overall utilisation, along with options to improve utilisation through smarter timetabling of classes and strategies for flexible working. The overall target for space utilisation on completion of the redevelopment is set at 40%.
Read the full TCG case study to find out more about how theyve managed their estate.
Stage 3: priorities for meeting the needs of your curriculum
An important part of developing your estates strategy is to establish how the estate can support the requirements of your curriculum as set out in your curriculum strategy, as well as to respond to national and