Updated: 16th April, 2026
Created: 9th November, 2021
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
Managing large estates can be a complex undertaking, especially in education. Trusts often have multiple sites with a variety of buildings used for different purposes, as well as a wide range of dilapidation levels.
Knowing where and when to prioritise activities and budget can be a constant challenge.
The starting point for prioritising effort and budget allocation is assessing the level of compliance for each building.
Whether the compliance assessment is carried out by an internal team or an external surveyor, the information gathered should be stored in a central system to enable quick and accurate reporting.
Additionally, a traffic light system can be a useful tool to grade the level of compliance, so that urgent actions can be taken.
The EO Portal has a very clear and visual interface to highlight the level of compliance at each site and building.
Developing a prioritised action list from the compliance report is the next step, and ideally, these actions should be included within the same reporting system.
The EO Portal also gives an overview of the entire property portfolio as part of its dashboard, and each area can be interrogated. By drilling down, it is also possible to get more granular information.
There are two reasons that tracking energy consumption across an estate is important.
Firstly, cost. Energy costs are one of the highest non-salary overheads, and there are actions that leadership teams can take to reduce them. Having a consistent reporting system is therefore important.
Secondly, reducing carbon emissions is likely to become a statutory obligation in the future as the Government pushes towards a zero-carbon economy.
The EO Portal is one tool which has an energy management module, enabling estate managers to monitor energy use and cost, and develop action plans to reduce cost and carbon emissions.
Understanding how your school or trust compares with other similar schools is useful to identify areas to improve efficiency.
The Department of Education publishes school performance and expenditure data, which can be analysed per pupil or per teacher. This can also be compared with other schools.
It is often difficult to identify a comparable school, so EO Portal helps you find comparable schools by many different criteria, including school size, percentage of free school meals, type of school or location.
Understanding how your school compares to other schools will help determine your action planning moving forward.
For more information on the EO portal, speak to Barker today.
