Each article carries a named partner byline and argues a position grounded in direct sector experience. The articles address the governance, operating model, and capability questions that responsible bodies and their leadership teams face as the DfE framework takes effect.
No articles match your current filters. Try removing a filter or browsing all articles.
By Richard Bunting | Founder, Compliance Pod. Operating Model Design, The Estates Strategy Partnership.
The DfE Education Estates Strategy shifts accountability for estate management from an operational question to a leadership governance question that most responsible bodies have not yet answered.
By Mel Stokes | Director, Legacy Governance Solutions. Governance Architecture, The Estates Strategy Partnership.
Four documents now define what responsible bodies in England must know, do, and demonstrate about their estate — and understanding the relationship between them is a board-level governance requirement.
By Julie Lawson | Chartered Manager. Founding partner, The Estates Strategy Partnership. Director, Education Compliance Solutions.
Knowing your maturity level and being able to demonstrate assurance at that level are two different things — and the gap between them is widest at Level 2, where it is most consistently underestimated.
By Richard Bunting | Founder, Compliance Pod. Operating Model Design, The Estates Strategy Partnership.
The compliance dashboard can be green, the task schedule current, and the certificates stored — and the organisation still unable to give a confident account of where it actually stands.
By Mel Stokes | Governance Architecture, The Estates Strategy Partnership. Director, Legacy Governance Solutions.
The finding that recurs most consistently in External Reviews of Governance is not that boards lack interest in their estate — it is that the governance architecture was never designed to support accountability for it.
By Richard Bunting | Founder, Compliance Pod. Operating Model Design, The Estates Strategy Partnership.
Self-assessed maturity levels are almost always higher than what direct examination of the evidence reveals — because the people who conducted the assessment built the processes they are assessing.
By Richard Bunting | Founder, Compliance Pod. Compliance Infrastructure, The Estates Strategy Partnership.
The gap between what a digital tool records and what the DfE Estate Management Standards actually require is rarely visible until you look for it — and most organisations have not looked.
By Julie Lawson | Founding partner, The Estates Strategy Partnership. Director, Education Compliance Solutions.
The Estate Management Competency Framework is consistently the least engaged of the four DfE source documents — not because it is obscure, but because what it asks of organisations is harder to act on than a task list.
By Julie Lawson | Founding partner, The Estates Strategy Partnership. Director, Education Compliance Solutions. Chartered Manager with over twelve years in education sector roles.
A completion log is not evidence. Evidence is the artefact that would satisfy an independent reviewer that the right work was done, by a competent person, at the right frequency, and that the responsible body knew about it.
By Richard Bunting | Founder, Compliance Pod. Operating Model Design, The Estates Strategy Partnership.
Organisations build compliance capability in response to a trigger. When those conditions change, the capability changes with them. The permanent obligation does not change. The infrastructure to carry it does.
This site uses cookies to improve your experience. See our Privacy Policy for details.
Your preferences have been noted. Cookie settings can be updated in our Cookie Policy page.