Beyond Bricks and Boilers

Russell Dalton presents guidance on building better asset management frameworks for schools

Walk into any school and you’ll feel it immediately.  Not the data.  Not the dashboards. The building. You’ll notice the draughty corridor that never quite warms up in winter. The classroom where the interactive whiteboard works, unless it rains. The boiler room everyone avoids because “it’s been temperamental for years.” These are not abstract assets. They are lived experiences for staff and pupils every single day.

Asset management in schools is often treated as a technical exercise, condition surveys, lifecycle costs, compliance checklists. All essential, of course, but when asset management frameworks fail, it’s rarely because the spreadsheet was wrong. It’s because the framework wasn’t human enough. If we want better asset management in schools, we need to stop thinking purely about buildings and start thinking about people.

Why Traditional Approaches Fall Short

Many schools technically have an asset management framework. There’s a register.  There’s a survey. There’s a plan that sits in a folder (or more likely, a shared drive) and gets dusted off when a funding bid is due. The problem is that these frameworks are often:

• Reactive rather than strategic
• Compliance-led rather than education-led
• Built in isolation from those who actually use the spaces

A condition survey might tell you a roof has five years left. It won’t tell you that staff avoid a particular block because the heating fails unpredictably, or that pupils with additional needs struggle in cramped, noisy rooms. Those insights live with caretakers, teachers, SEND teams and site staff, not consultants.

Good asset management starts where schools actually are, not where a template says they should be.

Start with Purpose, not Property

The most effective asset frameworks begin with one deceptively simple question, What are we trying to enable here? Is the school focusing on inclusion? Attendance? Community use? Staff wellbeing? Curriculum transformation? Estates should follow strategy, not the other way around. For example:

• A school prioritising inclusion may need calm, flexible spaces more than expansion.
• A trust focusing on staff retention may need to address lighting, ventilation and workload-reducing layouts.
• A community-centred school might accept higher wear and tear in exchange for stronger local engagement.

When asset decisions are disconnected from educational intent, they become expensive distractions. When they are aligned, they become powerful enablers.

The Unsung Experts – People on Site

Some of the most valuable asset intelligence in any school sits in people’s heads. Caretakers know which drains block every autumn. Teachers know which rooms overheat by period four. Office staff know which doors jam when it’s cold. Pupils can tell you which toilets feel unsafe. Yet many frameworks rely almost entirely on periodic external surveys.

A better approach blends professional data with lived experience. Regular, structured conversations with site teams and staff can reveal patterns no report will catch. Simple tools, issue logs, walkabouts, short surveys, can dramatically improve decision-making.  When people feel listened to, they also take greater ownership of the environment. Asset management stops being “something done to the school” and starts being something the school does together.

From Firefighting to Foresight

Schools are brilliant at coping. Boilers fail, roofs leak, budgets shrink and somehow learning carries on. But coping is not the same as planning. A strong asset management framework deliberately shifts the conversation from “What’s broken?” to “What’s next?”  This means:

• Clear lifecycle planning, even when funding isn’t yet secured
• Honest prioritisation (not everything can be urgent)
• Scenario planning for growth, decline, or change

Importantly, it also means accepting that doing nothing is still a decision, often the most expensive one! Foresight doesn’t require perfect information. It requires the discipline to look beyond the next crisis and the courage to have uncomfortable conversations early.

Making Money Work Harder

Asset management is inseparable from finance, but the cheapest option is rarely the best one. Short-term fixes can feel sensible in-year but costly over time. Conversely, capital projects that look efficient on paper can fail if they ignore how spaces are actually used. A more mature framework considers:

• Whole-life costs, not just upfront spend
• Energy efficiency and sustainability as financial strategies, not moral add-ons
• The hidden costs of disruption, downtime and staff stress

Crucially, financial decisions should be transparent and explained. When staff understand why a project was prioritised, or delayed, they are far more likely to support it.

Compliance is the Floor, Not the Ceiling

Health and safety, statutory testing and legal compliance are non-negotiable. But compliance alone does not create good schools. A framework obsessed only with avoiding risk can become defensive and joyless. The best ones see compliance as the foundation on which better environments are built. That might mean:

• Designing spaces that are not just safe, but inspiring
• Investing in preventative maintenance to reduce anxiety and disruption
• Using compliance data to inform improvement, not just tick boxes

Children do not thrive in buildings that merely meet minimum standards. Neither do adults!

Leadership Matters More Than Documents

You can tell a lot about a school’s asset management by how leaders talk about the site. Do they refer to it as “the building” or “our environment”? Is estates discussed only when something goes wrong, or as part of strategic planning? Are site teams invisible, or valued as professionals?

The strongest frameworks are championed by leaders who understand that asset management is not a technical add-on, but a leadership responsibility. They ask curious questions, invite challenge, and model long-term thinking. They also accept that perfection is unrealistic. Progress, consistency and honesty matter far more.

Final Thoughts

Schools are not offices that empty at 5pm, they are emotional spaces. Children learn who they are within them. Staff give years of their lives to them. Communities gather in them.  A truly effective asset management framework respects that reality. It balances data with judgement. Strategy with empathy. Prudence with ambition.

When we get it right, buildings stop being barriers and start becoming quiet partners in education, supporting learning, wellbeing and belonging without demanding constant attention and perhaps that is the real test of good asset management in schools, not whether anyone notices it at all, but whether everyone feels the difference.