LocatED to join the Department for Education. What does this mean for Academy Trusts and other Educational Institutions?

The integration will combine LocatED’ s commercial property expertise with the DfE’s understanding of what schools need in order to deliver outstanding education, creating a unified approach to managing and developing the education estate and help ensure that every child has access to high-quality school facilities that support their educational achievement.

LocatED was established in 2017 to support the delivery of education settings across England which included providing assistance to schools and colleges with buying, developing, and managing sites,  as well as providing strategic property advice to government and education bodies to help build a more-efficient education estate.

It is hoped that this joined-up approach will strengthen the department’s ability to support the education sector with identifying opportunities, streamlining processes, and delivering more coherent support to schools, academy trusts, local authorities, and other education providers requiring specialist property guidance across the complete property lifecycle.

This announcement follows publication of the results of the Queen Street Group’s annual report (who represent a network of academy trusts)  which stated that capital maintenance remains a key issue, with the ‘accelerating rate of decay’ in the school estate outpacing available funding. Their view is that  the lack of a clear national strategy to refresh school buildings is ‘placing great pressure on trusts to make limited funding stretch further’, with many school assets now ‘beyond life’.

For those trusts and institutions who are struggling to generate the finances needed to maintain their estates,  industry experts advise that trusts and schools need to be more financially driven and key to this is considering ways to maximise their estates and working out ways to make these assets work 52 weeks of the year, not just the typical 36.

Using the school estate to hold adult education classes in the evenings, renting out space for use by the community such as sports or arts clubs can all help to generate revenue which can then be reinvested in maintaining and constructing new buildings and infrastructure.

Hopefully, by joining the wider DfE infrastructure,  LocatED will be able to further assist and provide advice to academy trusts and schools with how to make the best use of their existing estate and these services will be more readily available to those who need it.

If you need any advice or additional information on possible ways to maximise use of your estate or with any property and construction projects you have planned, then reach out to Forbes’ Education Team who will be able to assist with any queries you may have.