In governance training on estate oversight, the people I most want to reassure are the ones who have just discovered that they are the named person responsible for the estate. Often they are a school business manager, a site manager or an operations lead who took the role on as part of a wider job. They want to do it properly. They also want to know where they stand. This article is for them, and for the boards that appoint them.

What do the School Estate Management Standards ask for?

At Level 1, the baseline, the standards ask that an organisation has a named individual responsible for estate management. This autumn's annual return asks whether the organisation has one, and notes that the person is often an estates lead or site manager, or part of a wider team that has estate management among its responsibilities. It then asks what qualifications or experience that person holds, and practical experience in estate management is one of the answers offered.

The standards ask for a named individual. They do not prescribe a job title, a grade or a single qualification.

Who holds the legal duty?

The main health and safety duties in a school sit with the employer under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. The department's guidance sets out who the employer is:

  • for community, community special and voluntary-controlled schools, maintained nursery schools and pupil referral units, the local authority
  • for foundation, foundation special and voluntary-aided schools, the governing body
  • for academies and free schools, the academy trust

The employer must protect, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare of employees, and must conduct its undertaking so that pupils, visitors and others are not exposed to risks to their health and safety. Particular duties sit alongside this, including the duty to manage asbestos under the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012.

Naming a person responsible for estate management does not transfer these duties. They remain with the employer. For academy trusts, the Academy Trust Handbook 2026, effective from 1 October 2026, states the department's expectation that trusts manage their school estate strategically and effectively and maintain it in a safe working condition, including compliance with statutory duties for the health and safety of building occupants. For maintained schools, the DfE's maintained schools governance guide says governing bodies must make sure that buildings provide a safe environment and comply with the relevant regulations, including health and safety, fire safety and the control and management of asbestos.

What does the named person take on?

A role within the organisation's arrangements for meeting those duties. In practice that usually means knowing what the estate is required to do, seeing that the work is carried out by competent people, keeping the records, managing the contractors, and reporting honestly to the executive and the board. The DfE's Estate Management Competency Framework describes what that looks like at four levels, from operative to strategic, and recognises that one person may work across more than one level.

The scope should be written down. A named person who is responsible for everything in general is, in practice, clear about nothing in particular.

Where does the individual stand if something goes wrong?

This section is a plain description, not legal advice, and any individual with a specific concern should take their own advice.

Every employee has a duty under the 1974 Act to take reasonable care for the health and safety of themselves and of others who may be affected by what they do or fail to do, and to co-operate with their employer on health and safety. That applies to a named person as it does to every member of staff.

The Act also provides that where an organisation commits an offence, and it is shown to have been committed with the consent or connivance of a director, manager or similar senior officer, or to be attributable to neglect on their part, that individual can be liable as well as the organisation. That provision is aimed at those who direct the organisation. It is a reason for boards and senior leaders to take their oversight seriously.

What regulators and investigators look at, after any serious incident, is what the organisation knew, what it did about it, and whether it can show both. A named person who was properly appointed, was competent for what they were asked to do, raised what needed raising and kept a record is well placed to show that they acted properly. So is their organisation.

What protects the individual and the organisation?

The same six things, which is the most useful fact in this article.

  • A written appointment, reflected in the job description, with a clear scope.
  • Competence assessed against the role, with training and support where there are gaps. The competency framework is the natural yardstick.
  • The time, authority and budget the role requires.
  • Access to specialist advice where the role goes beyond the person's own competence.
  • A reporting route to the board, so that concerns reach the people accountable.
  • Records made as the work happens, held where the organisation can find them.

Where these are in place, the organisation can show that it took its duties seriously, and the individual can show that they did what they were asked to do. Where they are missing, the named person is carrying risk that belongs to the organisation, usually without anyone having decided that they should.

What should a board do this term?

Four things, each of them modest.

Ask who the named person is, and confirm that the person knows and has it in writing.

Ask what the scope is, and what falls outside it.

Ask what the named person needs that they do not have.

Agree how, and how often, the board will hear from them directly.

Frequently asked questions

Does the named person need a formal qualification? The standards do not prescribe one. The annual return lists professional memberships and qualifications alongside practical experience in estate management. What matters is that the person is competent for the role they have been given, and that the organisation can show how it knows.

Is the named person the same as the competent person for health and safety? They can be the same individual, but the roles are distinct. Health and safety regulations require every employer to appoint one or more competent persons to help it meet its health and safety duties. The named person in the standards is responsible for estate management more broadly.

Does the Academy Trust Handbook apply to maintained schools? No. It applies to academy trusts as a condition of their funding. Maintained schools and local authorities work to their own instruments, including the DfE's maintained schools governance guide.

Can the named person be part of a wider team? Yes. The annual return offers this as one of its two ways of answering yes.

Does the annual return ask for evidence of any of this? No. It is multiple choice and asks for no supporting documents. Whether the arrangements behind the answer are sound is a question for the organisation itself.