Education Estates Strategy: our key takeaways
What is the government’s new Education Estates Strategy, and what does it mean for education estates professionals? Sewell Advisory’s education estates expert Nikola Idle looks at the main headline items from the new strategy.
Recently, the government published its Education Estates Strategy, sub-titled “A decade of national renewal”.
If you are wondering what’s the direction of travel – there’s a clue in the title, this is about moving to a more strategic approach, that enables long-term planning, rather than the reactive approaches and decisions the sector is all too often forced to take.
The DfE have structured this new approach around three key pillars:
1. Managing the Estate
2. Improving and Renewing the Estate
3. Building and Rebuilding the Estate
Here’s our key takeaways:
Managing the estate
- A new two-way portal to share estates information, tools and guidance
- Introduction of an annual return to assess compliance with the School Estate Management Standards
- MATs will ultimately be expected to collect their own condition data (akin to the CDC programme)
- New decision-making framework on how to make the best use of surplus space – aligned to wider community needs
Improving the estate
- An end to the CIF bidding process – replaced by a new programme enabled by enhanced data sharing
- Launch of a new £710m Renewal & Retrofit programme – aimed at projects too complex for maintenance but not needing rebuild
- Unlocking private finance for solar and energy efficiency projects
- A funded expansion of inclusion bases and guidance on high-impact adaptations to support SEND reforms
Rebuilding the estate
- An additional 250 schools to be included in the School Rebuilding Programme
- Creating additional Post-16 capacity aligned to local skills needs and priorities
- Increasing early years and nursery capacity and strengthening links with local services such as Family Hubs
- Continuing to invest in meeting sufficiency on a local basis
Need help with ensuring your education estate delivers inspiring, inclusive learning environments that comply with the new Education Estates Strategy? Sewell Advisory can help support you to transform your estate.