What Does the Annual Skills Assessment Requirement Mean for a Governing Body?

Across my work in External Reviews of Governance, board development, and strategic governance advisory practice, one pattern has remained consistent: the skills assessment has typically been treated as a governance process compliance task, completed annually to satisfy the requirement, without a structured methodology for assessing what competency is actually needed and whether the board holds it. Adding an estates dimension to that process does not make it more complex. It makes the inadequacy of the existing process more visible.

What does the annual skills assessment requirement actually require?

The Estate Management Standards at Level 1 state that the annual governors' or trustees' skills assessment should include detail of skills and expertise in estates management. At Level 2, the Standard moves further: the board must be aware of its role and responsibilities towards the estate and must have the skills to fulfil them.

Those are two different obligations. The Level 1 obligation is procedural: the assessment should cover the estates dimension. The Level 2 obligation is substantive: the board should actually hold the competency the estate requires. A governing body that adds a tick-box for estates to its existing skills matrix has met the Level 1 procedural obligation. It has not met the Level 2 substantive obligation.

The distinction matters because the annual return will require the Responsible Body to confirm its Standards level. A Level 2 claim supported by a tick-box assessment is a weaker governance position than a Level 2 claim supported by a structured, Framework-referenced competency finding.

What should a structured skills assessment look like for estates?

The Estate Management Competency Framework provides the structured basis for the assessment. The Framework identifies seven functional areas of estate management and four competency levels. For a governing body, the relevant question is not which of those competency levels individual governors can demonstrate. It is whether the board, as a whole, holds the capacity to govern the estate effectively: to receive and scrutinise evidence, to hold the estates function to account, to understand the risk landscape, and to make strategic decisions about the estate that align with the organisation's educational and financial planning.

That is a governance competency question, not a technical one. A governor who has sat on the finance and resources committee and dealt with capital programmes over many years may hold genuine relevant competency without having a formal estates qualification. A board that has never had a structured conversation about how it governs the estate, what questions it should be asking, and what evidence it needs to answer them, has a governance gap regardless of the individual profiles on its skills matrix.

What happens if the board lacks the necessary expertise?

The Standards do not require the board to fill every identified gap immediately. They require the Responsible Body to know what the gap is and to have a plan for addressing it. That plan may include recruiting a governor with specific expertise, engaging external training, or seeking advisory support that builds the board's capacity to govern the estate effectively over time.

What the Standards do not accommodate is a governing body that has not conducted the assessment at all, or one that has conducted an assessment too superficial to reveal the gaps it contains. The governance accountability is to know, to record, and to plan. A board that can produce the assessment, name the gaps, and show the improvement plan is meeting its governance obligation. A board that cannot is not.

What should a board do before the first annual return?

The practical preparation is to run the skills assessment as a structured, Framework-referenced exercise rather than a form-completion exercise. The assessment should name, for each of the seven functional areas, whether the board holds the governance competency to scrutinise that area, and where the gaps are. It should be minuted formally, approved by the board, and inform a development plan that carries specific actions and timelines.

In strategic Board development and training work across education organisations, the boards that approach this rigorously find two things. First, the gaps are often less severe than they feared. A board with experience in health and safety governance, financial management, and strategic planning typically has a stronger foundation for estate oversight than it has previously mapped. Second, the gaps that do exist are in specific and nameable areas, which makes them addressable through targeted development rather than wholesale board recruitment.

The investment in doing this properly before the first return is significantly smaller than the governance effort required to explain an inadequate assessment after one.

FAQ

What is the annual skills assessment? A structured review of the skills and expertise held by a governing body or board of trustees, conducted annually to ensure the board has the capability to fulfil its governance responsibilities. Under the Estate Management Standards, it must now include specific assessment of estates management skills and expertise.

Who is responsible for conducting it? The Responsible Body carries the accountability. In practice, it is typically coordinated by the clerk or company secretary, with the chair and senior leadership reviewing and approving the findings. The estates dimension should involve input from the estates lead or an external practitioner with knowledge of the Competency Framework.

What is the Estate Management Competency Framework? A DfE guidance document that sets out the skills and knowledge required across estate management roles at four competency levels. At board level, it provides the structured basis for assessing whether governors hold the competency to govern the estates function effectively.

Does every governor need estates expertise? No. The assessment is of the board as a whole. The question is whether the board collectively holds the governance competency to scrutinise the estate effectively, not whether every individual governor has a technical background.

What if we identify gaps? Does that affect our Standards level? Identifying gaps honestly and having a documented improvement plan is a stronger governance position than not having conducted the assessment. The Standards reward structured, evidenced improvement over time. A board that finds and addresses gaps is progressing as the Standards expect.

Mel Stokes is a founding partner of The Estates Strategy Partnership and Director of Legacy Governance Solutions.