Estates Planning – Building a Long-Term Vision

Most schools and trusts do not have an estates problem, they have an estates planning gap.  The day job is relentless, so estates decisions are often made at pace.  Bringing a simple planning structure around condition, compliance and priorities helps you take control, make better calls earlier, and spend limited capital where it delivers the most impact.  This session shows how to build a credible, multi-year estates strategy that links buildings, statutory compliance, safety, security, access, grounds, energy, and contractor management to wider educational and financial planning.

In this session we explore

• What “good” looks like, a practical estates strategy you can defend, not a wish list

• Life-cycle costs, backlog, and planned maintenance, how to stop false economies

• Using condition data properly, surveys, compliance logs, incident trends, asset registers

• Linking estates decisions to curriculum delivery, space utilisation, inclusion and wellbeing

• Energy efficiency and sustainability choices that pay back, and how to avoid green theatre

• Funding routes and timing, SCA, CIF, local authority, internal reserves, and what each is best for

• A data-led prioritisation method across all estates categories, not just the big capital jobs

• How to present options and trade-offs to SLT, trustees and governors so decisions stick

Take home points

• Estates strategy one-page template

• Backlog and life-cycle planning method

• Condition and compliance evidence checklist

• Capital bid readiness prompts

• Prioritisation framework for “whole estates”

• A clear narrative for SLT and trustees

This session is for

School business leaders and managers, trust COOs and CFOs, operations leads, estates and facilities managers, premises leads, and anyone responsible for estates risk, compliance, energy and capital planning in a school or MAT.

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