What Does the Estate Management Competency Framework Imply for Succession Planning?

Succession planning is one of those conversations that organisations tend to have only after something has gone wrong. A long-serving premises manager leaves at short notice. A business manager who carried most of the estates knowledge retires. A regional director of estates moves on and it becomes clear that no one else in the organisation understands what the role actually required. The Estate Management Competency Framework does not use the phrase "succession planning" directly, but its architecture makes the succession risk highly visible to any board willing to look at it clearly.

What Does the Competency Framework Actually Map?

The framework sets out four competency levels across seven estate management functions: Strategic Estate Management, Planning and Organising Estate Resources, Understanding and Managing Land and Buildings, Performance Management and Sustainability, Health and Safety and Compliance, Maintaining the Estate, and Managing Estate Projects.

At each level, the framework specifies the activities an individual is expected to carry out and the skills and knowledge they are expected to hold. Level 4, the Strategic level, carries the most significant governance obligations. It is at this level that the framework requires individuals to set out the estate vision and strategy, lead engagement with senior leadership and governing bodies, ensure governing boards are consulted on investment decisions, take full responsibility for compliance with governance arrangements, and identify and procure external expertise to support strategic objectives.

These are not incidental responsibilities. They are the responsibilities that a board depends on for the quality of its assurance on the estate.

Why Does the Framework Create a Succession Planning Obligation?

The framework exists, in the DfE's own terms, to help organisations benchmark existing skills and experience and identify gaps. When a board uses the framework honestly, it does not just learn what its current estate management team can do. It learns what the organisation would lose if key individuals left.

The organisations I work with on people capability and assurance planning often find that the Level 3 and Level 4 competencies are concentrated in one or two individuals. That concentration is a risk. It means that the knowledge needed to develop the estate strategy, manage senior leadership engagement, oversee compliance governance, and interpret condition data sits in a fragile position. One departure can leave a gap that takes years to fill, and in the interim the quality of assurance available to the board deteriorates.

A board that has conducted an annual skills assessment under the estate management standards, as Level 1 requires, should be asking a further question: if this person left, what would we lose and how long would it take to recover?

What Does Level 4 Succession Risk Look Like in Practice?

Level 4 requires individuals to possess experience of strategic planning, translating organisational objectives into estate strategy, providing leadership and direction, and engaging governing boards in estate matters as part of organisational planning and investment decision-making. These are skills that take years to develop and that cannot be recruited at short notice without significant cost or quality risk.

For many responsible bodies, particularly those at Level 2 or Level 3 on the estate management standards, there is no defined pipeline for Level 4 competency. Individuals at Level 3 (Manager) are expected to support the development of the estate strategy and assist in producing information for governing board reporting. But the framework does not automatically generate a development pathway that takes a capable Level 3 practitioner to Level 4 readiness. That pathway has to be designed deliberately and resourced appropriately.

What Should a Board Be Doing About Succession Risk?

The annual skills assessment required under the estate management standards is a starting point, not an endpoint. It confirms what competencies are present in the governing board itself. But boards should be applying a parallel lens to the executive estates function: not just "do we have someone in post at the required level?" but "do we have a plan if they leave?"

That means understanding, at minimum, which Level 3 and Level 4 competencies are held by single individuals, what would be required to develop a successor internally, whether external support could be procured in the event of a gap, and how the loss of estate management capability would be escalated to the board for decision.

Where organisations share estate management expertise across schools or across a trust, succession planning takes on a different shape. The framework's emphasis on Level 4 activities includes identifying and procuring external expertise to support strategic objectives, which legitimately includes commissioning specialist advisory support in a transition period.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the Competency Framework require organisations to produce a succession plan?

It does not use that language. But the framework's design, particularly the Level 4 requirements around governance accountability, strategic leadership, and board engagement, makes the succession risk visible and measurable. Any board conducting a genuine annual skills assessment should find it difficult to ignore.

At what level does succession risk become a governance matter?

The Level 4 activities in the framework are governance-adjacent by definition: setting out the estate vision, leading engagement with senior leadership and governing bodies, taking full responsibility for compliance with governance arrangements. When those activities are concentrated in one individual, the board has a governance exposure that belongs on a risk register, not just in an HR plan.

How does the framework interact with the annual skills assessment?

The annual skills assessment required under the estate management standards addresses board-level competency in estates oversight. The competency framework addresses operational and strategic estate management competency at Levels 1 through 4. A board genuinely using both instruments will identify gaps at both levels and should be able to describe what is in place to address them.

What if an organisation cannot fill a Level 4 gap internally?

The framework explicitly recognises that the organisation will not necessarily have a person for every level, and that many practitioners may not operate exclusively according to individual levels. External advisory support is a legitimate response to a Level 4 gap, provided the board has clarity about what is being bought and what accountability structure sits around the engagement. Procurement without that clarity does not resolve the succession risk; it displaces it.

Is succession planning more important for larger trusts?

Larger trusts tend to have deeper pipelines and more structured development pathways, but they also have more complex estates with higher Level 4 demands. Smaller responsible bodies, including single academy trusts and maintained school governing bodies, often carry the highest succession risk relative to their capacity to absorb it. The framework applies to all responsible body types, and the governance obligation to understand and manage that risk applies equally.

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