The most understandable pushback from the people who run estates is not that the Education Estates Strategy is wrong. It is that they cannot afford it. This article takes that objection seriously, reads the School Estate Management Standards against a capital budget, and sets out what an organisation can do this term with the money and the people it already has.
What does the backlog objection get right?
Almost everything about condition. The strategy itself describes an inheritance of patch and mend and a rising maintenance backlog, and an organisation whose survey lists more work than its allocation can fund is not exaggerating. Where the objection goes wrong is in treating the capital budget as the only lever the standards pull. Most of the standards describe how the organisation is run. Very little of Level 1 and Level 2 needs a capital budget to meet.
Which parts of Level 1 and Level 2 need capital?
The fabric work: repairing, replacing and improving buildings so they are safe, warm, weatherproof and suitable. That is a capital and revenue maintenance line and it is where the backlog lives.
Which parts do not? Read as a list, the two levels ask for the following, none of which is a capital cost.
- A named individual responsible for estate management
- A governing board that maintains oversight, with estates skills in its skills assessment, and at Level 2 a board aware of its role and able to fulfil it
- A health and safety policy that clearly defines and designates responsibilities, identifies property-related issues, makes sure action is taken, and monitors
- An estate strategy and an asset management plan, reviewed and signed off by the board
- An up-to-date condition survey, and at Level 2 the habit of using it and the Condition Data Collection data to prioritise
- Core data held: an asset register, tenure information, building areas, a statutory compliance register, an asbestos management plan, sufficiency data, running costs, layouts, energy data
- An assessment of whether the estate is fit for purpose and has the right amount of space, and at Level 2 whether it is being used effectively
- Continuity plans, and at Level 2 detailed ones
- Due diligence on contractors
- A considered balance between planned preventative and reactive maintenance, and a plan for the inspection of the estate
- Accurate estate budget forecasts that consider existing risk assessments
Every line on that list is organisation, competence or record. The strategy's own phrase is a shift from reactive repair to proactive, planned, long-term management of what already exists, and the shift is made by people and design before it is made by money.
Where is the money already going?
Three places, and all three are visible without a survey.
Reactive maintenance. A school that cannot say what proportion of its maintenance spend is reactive cannot move any of it into planned work, and planned work is cheaper for the same outcome. Level 2 asks for the balance to be considered. Considering it starts with counting it.
Energy. Level 1 asks for a Display Energy Certificate and its advisory report to be in place; the advisory report lists the measures the assessor found. The return asks whether the organisation holds energy consumption and energy cost data. Most hold the bills.
Space. Level 1 asks whether the estate has the right amount of space for its places and Level 2 whether the space is used effectively. Space that costs but does not teach is the largest single cost most organisations never look at. The strategy's own published case study is a trust that converted underused space into preschool rooms, wraparound care and holiday provision, and the department reports the result in its own figures. It is the only figure I will cite, because it is the department's.
What changes the funding case?
The strategy commits to a new programme by autumn 2028 to replace the Condition Improvement Fund, under which eligible Responsible Bodies will no longer submit full bids. The department says this is enabled by data transformation: Responsible Bodies collecting their own condition data in line with common standards and sharing it. Readiness for that means holding current condition data and a working evidence base. Nothing in the strategy says any particular organisation will receive funding, and the annual return is stated by the department not to affect the funding an organisation receives. What an organisation controls is whether its evidence of need exists in a form that can be read.
What about inclusion?
The DfE's Inclusive education estates guidance says creating an inclusive environment does not always require high-cost adaptations, and that well-chosen, affordable changes can remove barriers quickly. Its accessibility assessment covers physical access, but also daily routines, transitions and queuing, the sensory environment, wayfinding, emergency arrangements, specialist curriculum areas, personal care and independence. Several of those are questions of use and timetable before they are questions of fabric, and the guidance's sequence, identify the need, prioritise the adaptations that maximise impact, deliver and review, is the same sequence a limited capital budget needs anyway.
What can an organisation do this term with what it has?
- Name the individual and write down what they decide, what they escalate and to whom
- Count the reactive spend for the last year, by site, and put the number in front of the board
- Read the condition survey against the asset management plan and record where they disagree
- Assess the space: which rooms are used, when, by whom, and which are not
- Ask the inclusion lead which barriers in the draft inclusion strategy are about the building, and whether the estate lead was in the room
None of those is a project. Each one changes what the next pound of capital is spent on.
Common questions
Does meeting the standards mean spending more? Meeting Level 1 and Level 2 is mostly a matter of roles, records and habits. The capital line is the fabric, and the standards change the order in which it is spent rather than the amount.
Does the annual return unlock funding? No. The department states that the return does not affect the funding an organisation receives. It is a self-declaration with no supporting documents.
What does autumn 2028 change? The route to capital maintenance funding for eligible Responsible Bodies moves from full bids to a programme informed by condition data collected to a common standard. Holding that data is what readiness means.