Estates Manager Candidate Information Pack
CONTENTS About the GDST
4
The GDST Estate
6
The Estates Vision and the Estates Programme
8
The Capital Investment Programme
10
The Role
12
Person Specification
17
Application process
20
About the GDST
The Girls’ Day School Trust is the UK’s leading family of independent girls’ schools. In all of our schools, academic excellence is a given – at the GDST we develop character beyond the curriculum. The GDST is a charitable trust which owns and operates 25 schools across England and Wales. Our schools are mainly girls only, with the GDST ethos to ‘reach as many girls as possible’ permeating everything we do. Most schools are Junior, Senior and sixth form, with some having nurseries as well; one of the school’s remains a boarding school. The Council of Trustees oversee the strategic direction of the Trust, with an Executive Board who run the day to day operations, based at the Trust Office in Victoria, London. The Heads of the schools report into the Chief Executive, and all have Directors of Finance and Operation (DFO’s) who help to run the 23 schools and 2 academies. The GDST owns most of its property freehold, although there are certain leasehold landholdings, plus other property retained for investment purposes. There is also an outward bound centre in north Wales. Each of the schools and academies are run separately, with central services including Estates, Finance, HR and IT located in Trust Office. This is also where the strategic Education and Innovation strategy is set, along with most of the teacher and staff training, reinforcing the GDST ethos.
The GDST Estate
Our Estate is diverse, both geographically and chronologically, with buildings dating back to the 1800’s up to the present day. A significant number of the older properties are listed or locally listed and sit in Conservation Areas. Many of our properties are converted residential buildings, others are purpose built as schools. All of our current schools are in England and Wales and amount to over 200 buildings, predominantly owned by the GDST, plus also Trust Office in central London. Most of our properties are occupied for educational purposes, although some sites also have residential accommodation for staff, in addition to the one boarding school in Bath. Further investment properties are let out to external occupiers.
A list of the main schools and sites are given below: 1. Blackheath High School, London 2. Brighton and Hove High School 3. Bromley High School, London 4. Croydon High School 5. Howells School, Llandaff, Cardiff 6. Kensington Prep School 7. Newcastle High School for Girls 8. Northampton High School 9. Northwood College, Middlesex
10. Norwich High School for Girls 11. Nottingham Girls High School 12. Notting Hill & Ealing High School 13. Oxford High School 14. Portsmouth High School 15. Putney High School
16. Royal High School, Bath 17. Sheffield High School 18. Shrewsbury High School
19. South Hampstead High School, London 20. Streatham & Clapham High School, London 21. Sutton High School 22. Sydenham High School 23. Wimbledon High School 24. Belvedere Academy, Liverpool 25. Birkenhead High School Academy, Birkenhead
The Estates Vision
Our Estate is the physical representation of the schools and the GDST; with the Estates Strategy a reflection of the Trust’s strategic vision. It is the responsibility of the Estates department to deliver against this context. Although primarily for educational purposes, our schools host numerous events for the school community plus for the wider public benefit within their local communities. We aim to provide an appropriate quality of environments, infrastructure and buildings to support the educational and recreational needs of our schools; working to deliver sustainable and innovative spaces for our students to enjoy, whilst enhancing the GDST’s reputation as a leader in girls education.
The Estates Programme
Our mission is to provide an integrated customer service, providing strategic leadership and well as technical support and advice across the Estate, ensuring consistency of approach and critically ensuring compliance with all statutory requirements across the Estate at all times. The Estates department under the Director of Estates, hold the delegated responsibility from the Trustees to assure, maintain, enhance and develop the estate to ensure it is fit for purpose to provide innovative education and learning facilities as well as the breadth of functions that allow the schools to operate, including external spaces and sports fields. Our primary aim is to keep our Estate safe for our students, staff, visitors as well as members of the public. The Estates department run a continuous programme of maintenance programmes, minor works, refurbishment and new build projects, varying in scale from £100,000 to over £20 million. Each school also has a delegated maintenance budget, directly managed by the school, used to address minor repair and maintenance works. The Estates team act as the central Technical and Trusted Advisors for the schools, supporting them in all Estates related decision making, scoping and delivery.
The Capital Investment Programme
The GDST invests over £30 million annually in capital programmes across the Estate; based on a prioritisation of compliance and condition related works, educational need, as well as improvement and expansion of the Estate, as appropriate.
In the last few years these projects have been undertaken and are now complete.
• A new STEAM tower and dining room at Wimbledon High School; • A new Science and Arts facility at Oxford High School; • An extension to Bromley High School; • The refurbishment of Waterlow Hall at South Hampstead High School into a high quality performance space.
Significant projects currently underway:
• New Junior School at Notting Hill & Ealing High School (see CGI images on the next page) • Fire compliance works programme for all schools
• Long Term Maintenance programme across all schools • Major external refurbishment of Howells listed buildings
In parallel, there are a significant number of refurbishment and improvement works across the Estate, infrastructure works and maintenance programmes covering both fabric and mechanical and electrical works.
Estates Manager – The Girls’ Day School Trust
Location:
10 Bressenden Place, Westminster, London, SW1E 5AE
Accountable to:
Head of Estate Management
Grade:
Grade 2
Job Purpose / background The Estates Department acts on behalf of the Trust and deals with all property related matters to ensure that the estate is developed and maintained to agreed standards. The estate consists of 23 schools, two academies and the Trust Office based in Victoria.
Reporting to the Head of Estate Management the postholder will
• Act as a ‘Business Partner’ to the Schools on all aspects of Estate Management. • Identify, develop and manage estate improvements and minor works across the GDST school’s portfolio as part GDST’s long term maintenance and condition related works programmes, in support of the GDST’s and Estate Strategy. • Work in conjunction, and collaborate with, the Schools and Estates colleagues to develop and implement long term intelligent investment and maintenance plans for each school. • Offer the provision of an effective and holistic hybrid delivery service (all aspects of estate improvement and development - maintenance, refurbishment, new build and planning) to the GDST schools - which is significantly superior of that which any school could deliver on its own. • Work in collaboration with schools to ensure schools remain compliant for all statutory maintenance, fire risk and management. • Ensure schools comply with CDM Regulation for works carried by the school or capital projects by the Trust. • Be a ‘Trusted and Technical Advisor’ to the schools
The post holder will follow the GDST Strategic Vision, the Estate Strategy and the school business plans. They will also be required to :- • Support the Director of Estates to deliver a professional Estates focused knowledge base to support and enhance best practice throughout the Trust and to implement strategic investment for the Trust • Support the Trust strategy to be leaders in educating girls through Estates and charitable objectives of maximising use of estates assets for benefit of current and future students Accountabilities • Reporting to the Head of Estate Management and supporting the Director of Estates in the Strategic and Operational Leadership of Estates across the Trust • Supporting the delivery of the requirements of the Trust within the agreed Maintenance budgets and providing information to monitor the setting and updating of the Capital Investment budget, including the development and setting of both budgets • Ensure ongoing procurement and delivery of Estates Services at best Value for Money, through a thorough understanding Of schools needs based planning and budgeting • Effective collaboration with all GDST stakeholders, in particular Heads, DFO’s and Schools FM & maintenance teams. • Effective client management of design teams including contract administration and cost management. • Health & Safety, Fire inc. CDM responsibilities, managed, clearly communicated, and actioned. • Support long term maintenance (LTM) and fire compliance programmes with all stakeholders.
Key Responsibilities • Developing (from a client brief) delivering and project managing estate improvement and development projects across the GDST Schools portfolio, including minor works and LTM programmes. • Managing refurbishment and alteration projects across the GDST schools portfolio in partnership with the schools teams • Budget and procurement management associated with delivering minor works in a project management role • Ensure that all relevant statutory requirements, including Health and Safety and compliance, are adhered to in relation to all projects and day to day operation of the estate. • Ensure that the schools are properly implementing and complying with their agreed regimes for delegated maintenance and compliance in liaison with the Head of Compliance. • Assist in the delivery of the capital investment and maintenance programme on time, on budget, for each specific school in the geographical area – through effective project management to include: » Development of strategic investment plan and condition surveys into programmes of work for each school site, in full collaboration with the Head of Estate Management, the Schools’ plus Trust Office and Estates colleagues. » Development of the business case for each specific budget with fully costed and specified briefs detailing the entire project cost, in full collaboration with the schools and Trust Office. » Procurement of design teams and contractors using the Estates standard documentation » Monitoring and management of the individual projects and responsibility for overseeing the budgets for these projects/programmes. » Engagement and collaboration through the whole process with schools as the internal client » Co-ordinate Estates related business case development » Design and specify maintenance and adaptation works as required, utilising external consultant support where necessary » Act as intelligent client and perform client liaison role • Responsibility for managing content of the Asset Management database, ensuring updates to information made for schools and works responsible for.
• Support the Director of Estates to deliver clear and concise communication to the following stakeholders » Heads, Directors of Finance and Operations and School Business Managers. » Trustees » School Governors » Trust office • Carry out any other duties as are within the scope, spirit and purpose of the job
Key Relationships • Head of Estate Management • Director of Estates, Head of PMO, Head of Sustainability, Head of Compliance • Project & Estates Managers • School Heads, Directors of Finance & Operations (DFO’s) and School FMS / maintenance teams • Finance, Legal and other members of the Trust Office Management team • Outsourced service providers (e.g. professional consultants, contractors etc.) • Public bodies and statutory authorities, staff and community
Person Specification
• Ability to generate and maintain customer confidence in you as an individual and in the team as a whole. • Approach of proactively taking ownership of a situation and seeing it through to a successful conclusion • Excellent communication and presentation skills • Ability to work effectively and flexibly on own initiative under pressure • Excellent negotiating skills • Ability to motivate staff and to manage collaborative team working • Ability to create good working relationships both internally and externally and manage stakeholders effectively • Ability to work outside normal office hours as required • Able to work with, structure and prioritise large amounts of project information and
work with the Asset Management database • Ability to challenge in a constructive manner • Ability to develop creative solutions to difficult issues • Positive, ‘can-do’ attitude • Open and diplomatic approach • Team Player
Person Specification: Qualifications / Training
Education and Qualifications (Essential) • Professionally recognised qualification from a relevant professional body i.e. RICS / CIOB. (Desirable) • Estate / Project Management Qualification. • Mechanical or electrical qualification. Experience (Essential) • Experience of managing the development, design and delivery of refurbishment, maintenance and adaptation projects. • Experience of managing projects from inception to completion in a lead project manager role. • Experience of working on projects across a broad range of property types. • Background in Building Surveying, or Estate Management • Experience of performing the intelligent client role for internal customers. • Experience of managing external consultants and contractors to deliver refurbishment, maintenance and adaptation projects to time, cost and quality. • Experience of using structured project management techniques for planning and controlling projects and programmes. • Experience of receiving outline tasks, developing briefs and solutions, and managing these through to completion. • Experience of financial management across a wide range of budgets, with proven analytical skills and the ability to collate financial and other information from a range of sources, analyse it, draw conclusions, and propose solutions. • Experience of construction contracts, contract management and procurement practices relating to project and service delivery.
• Experience of neighbourly matters such as Party walls, boundary walls and ownership. • Experience of building and maintaining effective working relationships, with the ability to communicate clearly, confidently and persuasively with people at all levels both orally and in writing, including the ability to communicate complex technical issues to non-technical audiences • A broad knowledge of building related mechanical and electrical systems and associated servicing and compliance. (Desirable) • Experience of estate condition surveys. • Experience of working in the education sector. • Understanding of M&E, environmental, sustainability and energy conservation issues. • Experience of working on Listed Buildings and within Conservation Areas.
Person Specification: Qualifications / Training
Skills and Abilities (Essential) • Excellent written and oral communication skills • Ability to provide a strategic perspective with attention to detail • Ability to effectively manage time and meet deadlines whilst under pressure • Generic ICT literacy (e.g. Word; e mail, MS Project, use of databases) • Strong verbal and numerical reasoning ability • Strong analytical and research skills, able to produce technical content and organise material. • Using Asset databases (Desirable) • Ability to effectively use Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint, particularly for production of reports. Knowledge (Essential) • Awareness of appropriate and relevant construction related legislation, methods and processes • Building Defect analysis • Health and Safety legislation and compliance. General Requirements All staff are expected to: • Work towards and support the Trust vision and current objectives outlined in the GDST Strategic Development Plan. • Work within the Trust’s health and safety policy to ensure a safe working environment for staff and visitors.
• Work within the GDST’s Diversity Policy to promote equality of opportunity for all staff, both current and prospective. • Maintain high professional standards of attendance, punctuality, appearance, conduct and positive, courteous relations with Trust Office colleagues, schools staff, external contacts and visitors. • Engage actively in the performance review process, and training and development opportunities available. • Adhere to policies as set out in the GDST Council Regulations, Notes of Guidance and GDST circulars. • Undertake other reasonable duties related to the job purpose required from time to time.
Other Requirements (Essential) • Enhanced DBS check.
Circumstances • Full driving licence and daily use of car for work • Travel in support of the duties of the role • Stay overnight in support of the duties of the role • Work flexibly as required in support of the duties of the role
For a confidential conversation please contact our advisors Ben Duffill (ben.duffill@mrgpeople.co.uk) and Nick Coppard (nicholas.coppard@mrgpeople.co.uk) of The Management Recruitment Group on 020 3962 9900. Applications should consist of a comprehensive CV (of not more than 4 pages) and a covering letter (of not more than 2 pages).
Applications should be sent to ben.duffill@mrgpeople.co.uk and nicholas.coppard@mrgpeople.co.uk.
51 Eastcheap, Billingsgate, London EC3M 1JP +44 20 3962 9900
www.mrgpeople.co.uk
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