Updated: 16th April, 2026
Created: 16th January, 2020
Robert joined Barker in 2002 and is a Partner based in our Braintree office. A Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, he has over 20 years’ experience of all core building surveying services and provides strategic estates advice to key accounts in the education, commercial, ecclesiastical and public sectors.
An education specialist, he provides the following services: estates and energy strategy, asset management planning, project management and capital funding applications.
Robert works closely with clients to plan and implement energy efficiency and sustainability strategies to save money, reduce carbon emissions and meet ESG objectives.
As a RICS Certified Historic Buildings Professional he provides conservation consultancy for clients with listed and historic buildings.
Robert is an experienced APC Assessor and Chairman and is also an external examiner for Anglia Ruskin University
As a Partner Robert leads the Business Development and Marketing function at Barker, builds relationships with key sector bodies and helps steer the strategic growth of the company.
Email: rgould@barker-associates.co.uk
Tel: 01279 648057
In this, the second in a series of short articles about condition surveys for schools, we will look at methods of data collection and handling and give advice on the interpretation of the data and how it can be used to make optimum strategic decisions to benefit the estate.
In the first part of this series, we looked at the importance of accurate condition survey data, how it can help the estate management function and how to go about procuring condition survey programmes (if you missed our condition survey programme, you can catch up here).
Whatever the scope you decide upon, it will be necessary to collect, collate and analyse a large data set. For a typical educational trust, this is likely to run into many hundreds, if not thousands, of lines of data.
Data and data management are an important part of school estate management. Managing your data helps you
Efficient management is dependent on the availability of reliable data in a format that allows meaningful interpretation.
Before deciding on the most appropriate route, you should ask yourself
Property asset data is only valuable if it is current, correct, complete and consistent, but it also needs to be accessible. There is also little point in collecting data that will be onerous to maintain and will not add significant value to the estate management process.
For example, maintaining detailed information on types, manufacturers, and the condition of internal finishes could add a disproportionate amount of data when the management of such items is likely to be managed locally rather than part of the overall estate strategy.
If you do want to collect and manage data at this level of detail, it is important to understand the amount of internal resources that will be required to monitor and maintain it, and this should be factored into the overall decision on how far to go with your estate management systems.
We are all familiar with spreadsheets, and this is where most condition data will be held in the early stages.
But as the estate portfolio grows, it may become necessary to look to more sophisticated solutions to enable information to be collated and analysed without resorting to days of specialist and complex spreadsheet modelling.
The DfE’s Good Estate Management for Schools (GEMS) guidance outlines some of the core requirements of a data management system.
You might also consider whether you wish to manage your condition data in isolation or integrate it with other related information, such as compliance or energy/utilities data.
There are complex computer-aided facilities management (CAFM) programmes that can handle these enhanced tasks, but they are expensive and not always suitable for the education sector.
Before committing to a CAFM system, it is important to understand the training requirements not just for trust level staff but also for those stakeholders at a local level.
EOPortal is an example of a simple and cost-effective estates management system developed especially for the education sector. It is referenced in the DfE GEMS guidance (see Performance Management of the Estate tab) as a good way for trusts to manage and analyse their data.
Using Microsoft Power BI embedded in a portal solution gives a simple, robust and industry-standard system.
It works with data you already have, whether that be stored in an Excel file or on a database. Importantly, the portal ensures the data is presented in a way which is intuitive for the user and allows them to make evidence-based decisions in an efficient manner.
The portal can be customised, enabling our clients to present their data in a way which is consistent with their own branding. Presented in tabs, each page presents data in different ways depending on need.
Progressing through the tabs allows analysis at a more and more granular level. The dashboard pages are useful for directors at the trust level, with later pages for site usage to determine work packages.
For a demonstration of the EOPortal, click here.
By having a better understanding of the funding requirements and stratification over time, those responsible for managing the estate can better prepare and deploy their limited resources.
For example, data-driven asset management can help ensure that the available funds are delivered to areas of need rather than want and introduces a level of third-party independence to the process.
By having a clear long-term view of the estate requirements, programmes of work can be planned more carefully and economies of scale utilised.
For example, it may be more efficient to bring forward a programme of external decorations utilising the scaffolding for an urgent roofing project rather than doing this work at the time originally allocated.
Alternatively, it could bring clarity to similar types of works being carried out on different sites, opening up the possibility of joint procurement exercises which could result in significant cost savings.
In the final part of this series, we look at how this can be pulled together in the area of performance management and how benchmarking can be used to drive improvement across the estate. Read Data-Driven Decision-Making for Estate Management here.
