The conversation I have most often with trusts at the point of engaging with their estates function goes something like this: the Framework has been downloaded, someone has read it, and the conclusion is that the organisation is probably doing quite well. Usually because the estates structure has been inherited and feels established. What nobody has done is sit down and map the current team against it. Start by mapping your current team roles against the framework's seven functions and four competency levels. Identify where roles are missing, where the skills held do not match the level required, and where vulnerabilities from over-reliance on individuals exist. The framework is a diagnostic tool as much as a standards document. Gap identification is the starting point, not the outcome.
In my work with trusts on estates capability development, I consistently encounter the same pattern. The document exists. The intention to use it exists. What is missing is a structured method for turning it from a reference into a finding. This article sets out that method.
What the Estate Management Competency Framework Is
The Estate Management Competency Framework was published by the DfE and is aligned to GEMS (the Good Estate Management for Schools guidance). Its purpose is to set out the standard skills and knowledge required across education estate roles and to give schools and trusts a way to benchmark what they currently have against what the function requires.
It is organised around seven functions of estate management and four competency levels. It is not a compliance checklist. It is a design tool. The question it is designed to answer is not whether your organisation is technically compliant, but whether it has the people, skills, and roles in place to manage the estate well over time.
The Seven Functions
The framework outlines seven functions that together define the full range of estate management activity in an education setting: strategic estate management (taking a long-term strategic approach to land and buildings, aligned with organisational planning objectives); planning and organising estate resources (ensuring the policies, procedures, and governance structures that make effective estate management possible); understanding and managing land and buildings (legal interests, physical condition, suitability and sufficiency, and using that knowledge to inform strategic planning); performance management and sustainability (monitoring estate performance, managing sustainability commitments, and making optimal use of resources); health and safety and compliance (maintaining a safe environment, meeting statutory obligations, and ensuring compliance is evidenced and managed); maintaining your estate (planned and reactive maintenance, managing contractors, and ensuring the physical environment is fit for purpose); managing your estate projects (procuring, overseeing, and delivering estate projects of varying scale and complexity).
The Four Competency Levels
The framework describes four levels, each with defined responsibilities and typical roles. Level 1 (Operative): day-to-day site tasks, minor works, daily checks, opening and closing. Typical roles: caretaker, site assistant, facilities assistant. Level 2 (Supervisor): ensures tasks are carried out effectively, first point of contact for premises issues, identifies training needs. Typical roles: office manager, facilities team leader, assistant manager. Level 3 (Manager): plans and reports on estate activities, manages staff, maintains the asset management plan and health and safety compliance programme. Typical roles: estate manager, business manager, premises manager. Level 4 (Strategic): leads strategic planning, sets governance arrangements, assigns roles and responsibilities, sets training plans, reports to the board. Typical roles: estates director, regional director, head of estates.
Most organisations will not have a named person at every level, and many practitioners operate across levels within a single role. The framework is a design tool, not an org chart. The question it asks is whether the functions are covered at the level the organisation's complexity requires.
How to Use the Framework as an Assessment Tool
Step 1: Map current roles against the seven functions
Begin with a simple mapping exercise. For each of the seven functions, identify whether there is a named person with clear responsibility. This is not asking whether the tasks within that function get done. It is asking whether anyone owns the function at a defined level.
Note where one person carries responsibility across several functions, and where functions have no clear owner. This produces the first gap picture: functions without coverage. Incomplete function coverage is the most common finding at this stage, and the one most often invisible to the team before the exercise is done.
Step 2: Assess the competency level of each role against the framework
For each function with a named owner, assess what level that person operates at, using the framework descriptions as the benchmark. This is not a performance assessment. It is a structural question: does the level of capability in this role match what the organisation's complexity and Estate Management Standards maturity target requires?
A trust with twelve schools that has one person operating at Level 2 across functions that require Level 4 strategic leadership has a structural problem, not a people problem. The framework gives you the language to name it correctly. That distinction matters when the finding needs to go to the board.
Step 3: Identify single points of failure
Where one person covers multiple critical functions, or where a function would stop being managed if that person left, that is a single point of failure. The competency framework assessment surfaces these explicitly. They are operating model risks. They represent the point at which the estate's compliance programme becomes dependent on individual continuity rather than organisational design.
The Estate Management Standards at Level 1 require a named individual responsible for estate management and require the annual governors' or trustees' skills assessment to include detail of estates skills and expertise. A single point of failure in a statutory compliance function is not just an HR risk. It is a governance risk, and it belongs in the board's line of sight.
What to Do With the Gaps
The assessment produces findings in three categories, each of which requires a different response.
A missing function means the organisation needs to assign clear ownership or, in some cases, recruit or commission external resource. Before making that call, it is worth considering whether a function is genuinely absent or whether it is being carried informally by someone whose role does not reflect it. The assessment helps make that visible.
A capability shortfall means the person in the role is operating below the level the function requires. The response is either structured development, role redesign, or additional resource. The framework gives the language for a training plan that is specific rather than generic. 'We need more training' is not a board-level finding. 'The estates manager is operating at Level 2 across functions that require Level 3 or above, and here is the development plan to address that' is.
A single point of failure requires a structural response: succession planning, cross-training, or a decision to restructure how the function is organised. It is worth naming these separately in the report to leadership, because their resolution is different in kind from the other gap types.
A consistent pattern is that the assessment gets done and the results get filed. The assessment is not the outcome. It is the starting point for a structured conversation with senior leadership and the board about what the estates function actually needs, evidenced against a published DfE framework, rather than asserted from instinct.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do we need someone at every competency level?
No. The framework describes the functions and levels that exist across the full range of education estate roles. Most organisations will have people who operate across levels within a single role. The question is whether the functions are covered at the level the organisation's scale and complexity requires. A small primary school and a MAT with forty sites have different answers to that question. The framework does not prescribe the structure. It gives you the benchmark to design against.
What should we do if we find significant gaps?
Name them clearly in a report to senior leadership and the governing body or board. The framework gives you the language to describe what is missing and at what level, which is more useful than a general statement that more resource is needed. Prioritise the highest-risk gaps: functions with no coverage, single points of failure in statutory compliance areas, and roles where the capability level does not match what the organisation's estate requires.
How does this connect to the annual return?
The Estate Management Standards require the annual governors' or trustees' skills assessment to include estates expertise. The Standards at Level 2 go further: the board must be aware of its role and responsibilities towards the estate and must have the skills to fulfil them. A competency framework assessment gives the board a structured basis for that requirement. Without it, the skills assessment is an opinion. With it, it is a finding that can be tracked, reported, and improved on year by year.
How often should we run the assessment?
Annually, as a minimum. Also when there is a significant change in the team, or when the organisation moves to a higher maturity level target under the Estate Management Standards. The framework is most useful when used longitudinally: tracking whether the gaps identified last year have been addressed, and whether new gaps have opened as the organisation grows or its estate becomes more complex. The annual return obligation from autumn 2026 makes that annual rhythm both practical and timely.
Julie Lawson leads the People and Capability domain at The Estates Strategy Partnership.