Managing your School Estate

Capital advisers programme – Pilot Evaluation

A report evaluating the pilot programme to support trusts to strategically manage their estates and make the best use of their capital funding.

The Pilot, which ran from March to July 2021, gaged if, and in what circumstance, an assessment by capital advisers could help multi-academy trusts (MATs) manage their estates and make the most use of their school condition allocations (SCA).  A sample of 20 trusts who receive SCA were selected, ensuring variety in geographical spread and trust sizes, to participate in the Capital Advisers Programme (CAP) pilot.

Responses at the end of the pilot were mostly positive with no negative feedback, with trusts indicating “it helped with estates strategy planning, providing assurance and was beneficial for new/growing trusts…”.

Subsequent to the success of the SRMA pilot, the focus of CAP has been on the support and capability building pillars of the SRMA programme.  A wider rollout of the CAP programme, which promotes best practice in line with GEMS could be advantageous for trusts.

“CAP will be expanded in the 2022/23 academic year as the pilot demonstrated significant potential to support schools. The department is continually improving its offer to schools, including industry-leading practice and tools in GEMS. This will help schools achieve safe, well-maintained buildings, helping to support world-class teaching and learning.”

The full pilot evaluation report is now available of gov.uk website.  Click here for quick access.