The promised additional funding for estates won’t get near fixing long-term neglect. RLB Senior Associate Diane McKinley recently shared her views in Schools Week about how schools can overcome the autumn budget disappointment and make the most of what is available.
The autumn budget’s announcement of additional capital funding for schools is welcome, but the increases are dwarfed by critical needs. So, what can schools and trusts do?
On first read, the figures look promising: Of £6.7 billion allocated to the Department for Education (DfE), £1.4 billion is earmarked for rebuilding schools, and £2.1 billion for improving the condition of the school estate. There is also a forecasted additional £1 billion for specialist and alternative provisions, along with a further £15 million to create 3,000 new or expanded nurseries in primaries.
This all signals positive change, but even the treasury has acknowledged that much of the SEND funding will be used by local authorities to fund in-year deficits rather than provide additional services or fund essential facility improvements.
Meanwhile, many schools are struggling with the squeeze on budgets from the increase to teachers’ pension scheme employers’ contribution and now having to accommodate the increase in national insurance contributions.
Smaller rural schools with the most ageing building stock, low pupil numbers and very little pupil premium funding will be particularly vulnerable. And there is little hope that the budget funding will assist the 43 lowest-funded councils that are expected to be part of a culminative local authority high-needs deficit estimated to reach £5 billion by March 2026.
In the background, there has been an 80 per cent reduction in devolved formula capital (DFC) funding distributed to local authorities for capital investment since 2010. This is beginning to take its toll on the condition and general maintenance of buildings, causing this to drop down schools’ priorities list.
But if the RAAC crisis illustrated anything, it was the pressing need for schools to assess the condition of their estates. For many, it’s no longer a question of if but when they need to rebuild or refurbish.With rising budget pressures, declining birth rates and the net-zero roadmap to consider, assessing the condition of school estates and prioritising effectively is crucial.
Strong foundations
Given relentless pressure to keep school buildings safe, compliant and fully operational even as budgets grow ever tighter, effective, strategic estate management is essential to prioritise maintenance and development needs over a three- to five-year period.
For a robust strategic estate plan, reliable data is essential. While many schools are progressing in their digital transformation journey, some have yet to invest in digital systems for managing estate data.
A traffic light system on a simple spreadsheet or a digital dashboard, for example, can highlight critical safety issues, areas needing attention within one to three years and longer-term needs.
Adequate resources must be allocated to upload maintenance records on a regular basis, but once complete, whichever system you use should be able to highlight issues in advance automatically.
The DfE’s Good Estate Management for schools is an excellent guide to assist schools and Trusts with the prioritisation of maintenance and should be the reference bible for any estate plan. The risk-based tool should be saved on the desktop of all school business managers / leaders.
A greener future
Tracking energy consumption is also key as these are one of the largest overheads schools face. Monitoring can be completed through the use of an energy management portal or a combined maintenance and energy platform, but the outcome be the production of suitable action plans.
The Department for Education’s Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy requires all educational settings to establish a climate action plan by 2025. Reliable estate data is invaluable for sustainable benchmarking, assessing the energy performance of assets and providing evidence for funding aimed at achieving net zero plans.
This includes grants like the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero’s Phase 5 of the Public Sector Low Carbon Skills Fund which has provided £15 million of grant funding for heat decarbonisation plans in 2024/25 and can open the way to additional grants through the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme.
The autumn budget’s funding won’t alleviate estate managers’ financial worries. However, with budgets stretched and schools needing to ensure safety comes first, an evidenced, pragmatic and systematic approach can optimise assets while minimising risk.
Read the full article in Schools Week.
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