Education estate maintenance planning: an essential guide 

School buildings and systems are valuable assets that play a vital role in delivering first-class educational experiences. They must be safe, comfortable and weatherproof for students, staff and visitors. They should also be energy efficient and in good working order to reduce running costs and help schools meet their ESG aspirations. 

With increasing pressure on school budgets, evidence-based maintenance plans that include both preventative and reactive maintenance are key. This type of strategy can keep school buildings and systems in optimum condition to protect their value and provide the best possible learning environment. 

Here we discuss what estate maintenance planning is, what a good maintenance strategy includes and the information you need to put an effective plan in place.

What is an estate maintenance plan?  

An estate maintenance plan is a schedule of the work you intend to perform on your school buildings and systems on a weekly, monthly and annual basis. It will reduce the cost and disruption associated with poor and irregular maintenance and form an essential part of your wider estate management strategy.

Your maintenance plan will typically cover a three to five-year period and include works you have identified via a condition survey. They will be prioritised based on your health and safety and security compliance requirements, the condition and age of your assets, the severity of the issues and their potential impact. 

What should you include in your estate maintenance plan?

A good school maintenance plan will include minor and regular jobs and one-off larger jobs such as capital repairs or replacements. The smaller jobs should be easy to plan for and typically include both planned preventative maintenance and reactive maintenance. 

Planned preventative maintenance (PPM) is any form of maintenance you carry out on a scheduled and regular basis. It can be time or condition-based and enables you to reduce the amount of reactive maintenance you do and the associated cost. Reactive maintenance also has a place in your estate maintenance plan. It covers works that are not planned or cyclical. It is typically undertaken due to an unexpected failure or accidental damage. 

According to the Department for Education’s Good Estate Management for Schools (GEMs), it’s good practice to allocate your maintenance budget to PPM and reactive tasks based on a 70:30 split. You should consider the ongoing maintenance cost versus the cost of replacing damaged items when determining which maintenance type to use.  

As part of your estate management plan, you must also determine who will perform each maintenance task. You may not have the necessary skills or equipment to carry out certain tasks in-house, and by law, some activities must be completed by a suitably qualified contractor. 

Once you have determined the type of maintenance to perform and who will do the work, the final step is to timetable it. If you use a contractor, always book them in advance to ensure their availability. 

What information do you need for estate maintenance planning?

You need an accurate picture of the condition of your buildings and systems before you can create a maintenance plan That’s where a building condition survey comes in. It will provide detailed information about your assets’ physical and mechanical condition. These visual inspections will identify the maintenance, repairs and replacements required, how much the work will cost and a suitable order of priority based on an industry standard grading system. 

Alongside the condition survey, you should have a plan of the estate that includes details of all the utilities information, such as where stopcocks, drainage and cabling points are. You also need a schedule of the contracts related to the utilities, including gas safety checks, portable appliance testing and fire safety tests. 

Finally, you need a detailed inventory of all your maintenance equipment. That includes everything from spare parts to information about your heating and ventilation systems and their life expectation. Building that data into your school maintenance plan will help to create a comprehensive strategy.   

Meeting the cost of your maintenance plan

Implementing an effective school maintenance plan might sound expensive, but assistance is available. The Condition Improvement Fund (CIF) is an annual funding scheme from the Department of Education that provides funds to support school maintenance, improvement and expansion projects. The fund’s focus is keeping school and academy buildings in good working order for pupils between the ages of two and 19. 

Urgent Capital Support (UCS) is also available for schools, academies and sixth-form colleges that require funding to address urgent building condition issues that threaten the safety of pupils or the school’s closure. That includes leaking roofs, structural concerns, pipework issues, boiler failure and more. 

Specialist estate management planning for schools

At Eddisons Education, we can help with every aspect of your education estate management planning. From conducting condition assessments and implementing detailed estate maintenance plans to applying for CIF and UCS funding, we enable you to achieve the highest standards for your estate. Please get in touch to discuss your school maintenance requirements with our team.