What Does the Competency Framework Require at Level 4 (Strategic), and Who in Your Organisation Fills That Role?

What I consistently encounter in schools and trusts at this maturity level is a specific gap that the organisation has not yet named as a gap. Someone is doing the estates management work. The compliance tasks are being completed, at least most of them. The contractor relationships are being managed. But the strategic planning of the estate, the board-facing accountability, the integration of estate decisions with the organisation's financial and educational planning: those functions are either split across people who carry other primary responsibilities, or they are not happening in a structured way at all. Level 4 of the Competency Framework is the description of what covering those functions actually requires.

What does the Competency Framework define at Level 4?

Level 4 (Strategic) is the highest competency level in the Estate Management Competency Framework. It is described as leading strategic planning of the estate and being responsible for all estates activities. The typical roles listed at Level 4 are estates director, regional director, and head of estates.

The structural responsibilities at Level 4 include: leading on establishing and overseeing the governance rules and procedures through which the organisation's estate objectives are met; taking full responsibility for compliance with governance arrangements; assigning roles, responsibilities, and levels of authority to appropriate personnel; setting out training plans based on roles and responsibilities across the estate and wider organisation; and leading on the implementation and oversight of effective risk management systems aligned with governance arrangements.

That list is not a description of an estates manager who is also attending board meetings. It is a description of a function that carries board-level accountability for strategic estate leadership, that constitutes the governance structures through which others operate, and that connects estate planning directly to the organisation's wider objectives.

Why does this matter to a trust board?

The Estate Management Standards require a Responsible Body to have an individual named as responsible for estate management. That requirement, at Level 1, is a starting point. The progression to Level 2 and Level 3 requires the function to be substantively filled, not just nominally assigned.

A board that has named someone as the responsible individual but has not assessed whether that person is operating at Level 4 (Strategic) has not completed its governance obligation on capability. The annual skills assessment required by the Standards from Level 1 onwards is the mechanism through which that assessment should happen. In trusts I have supported through assurance preparation, the most frequent finding is that the person named as responsible is operating at Level 3 (Manager) and the Level 4 functions are either distributed, deferred, or absent.

That is not a criticism of the individual concerned. It is a governance design observation. Level 4 functions require organisational investment: time, seniority, authority, and access to board-level decision-making. Assigning those functions to someone whose role is constituted at manager level creates a structural gap that the individual cannot close through effort alone.

How should a trust identify whether the Level 4 function is being covered?

The assessment has two parts. The first is functional: go through the Level 4 competency descriptions in the Framework, function by function, and identify who in the organisation is performing each. Not who is nominally responsible for estates. Who is actually doing the strategic planning, holding the governance accountability, and constituting the operating procedures through which others work.

The second part is structural: is the person or persons performing those functions constituted to do so? Do they have the authority to make the decisions that Level 4 requires? Do they have access to the board as equals in the relevant planning processes? Is their role described, resourced, and held to account at the level the functions require?

The assessment will frequently reveal that the Level 4 functions are being performed informally, across multiple people, without the governance structure that Level 4 requires. That is the gap the board needs to name, plan for, and report against.

What is the connection to the annual return?

The annual return requires a Responsible Body to confirm its Standards maturity level. A Level 2 or Level 3 claim is harder to sustain without being able to evidence that the Level 4 function is covered at the organisational level that the Standards expect. It is not only about whether the tasks are being done. It is about whether the governance and strategic planning structures are in place to ensure they are done consistently and to the standard required.

A trust that has conducted a structured Level 4 assessment and can document the finding, the gap analysis, and the improvement plan is in a materially stronger governance position than one that has not. The Standards are clear that people and capability are not a supporting condition for estate management. They are a primary requirement.

FAQ

What is the Estate Management Competency Framework? A DfE guidance document that sets out the skills and knowledge required across estate management roles in schools and trusts in England. It covers seven functional areas at four competency levels: operative (Level 1), supervisor (Level 2), manager (Level 3), and strategic (Level 4).

Does every trust need a full-time Level 4 estates person? The Framework does not specify a staffing model. It asks whether the Level 4 functions are being covered at the level the organisation's complexity requires. A large multi-academy trust managing a substantial multi-site estate will typically require dedicated Level 4 leadership. A smaller trust may cover the same functions differently, but the functions themselves must be covered.

What happens if the Level 4 functions are currently being covered by someone in a Level 3 role? This is a governance design gap. The board's obligation is to name it, plan for it, and report against it. An improvement plan that addresses the gap credibly, with milestones and accountability, is a stronger governance position than one that does not acknowledge the gap.

How does Level 4 connect to what the board itself needs to know? The board's skills assessment must include estates expertise. The Level 4 function and the board's own competency are connected but distinct: the Level 4 function is the professional leadership of the estate; the board's competency requirement is the governance oversight of that function. Both are required by the Standards.

Where does the competency assessment happen in practice? The annual skills assessment required by the Standards is the natural vehicle. It should be structured against the Competency Framework, not conducted as a general conversation. A structured, Framework-referenced assessment produces a finding the board can act on. An informal assessment produces an opinion.

Julie Lawson leads the People and Capability domain at The Estates Strategy Partnership.