Director of Estates and Facilities

Purpose:

• To manage all aspects of the College’s estate, its related resources and facilities to provide a physical support environment commensurate with the College’s strategic objectives.

• To provide long-term, comprehensive and integrated physical estates planning for the College.

• To provide leadership and effective management of the Estates Department including for health, safety and environmental matters for the College.

Reports to: Assistant Principal (Finance & Operations)

Estates Background:

The estates department has an in house team of caretakers (4), an electrician, a groundsman and cleaners (10). The team is led by our Estates Manager and a newly appointed Estates Officer. These two roles would report into the Director of Estates. There are also various contractors who tend to a programme of maintenance.

The College land comprises:

• The land on which the college stands, plus green areas, path and car park (approx. 6 acres)

• Purbeck Road (a private road with thoroughfare conditions)

• The land on which the Sports Centre and tennis courts are built (approx. 3 acres)

• Sports Field at Luard Road (approx. 10 acres)

• One quarter of trust land (approx. 2 acres bordering the Sports Field and Long Road above). This is held in trust with the other trustee organisations.

The College owns the freehold of

• All College Buildings (13,100 m2)

• Sports Centre building (included above)

• Tennis Courts (included above)

• Pavilion at the Sports Field

• The annual budget for minor works, maintenance and capital for 2020/21 is £1.5m.

The post requires strategic vision, management expertise and practical experience to lead and manage maintaining and enhancing the College’s estate. The College has just created a new strategic plan which will require a five year accommodation strategy in order to achieve our objectives of providing a 21st Century working and learning environment.

Main Accountabilities:

To ensure that the Estates Department is:

• Strategically focused to support the achievement of the College’s strategic objectives in the development of the estate and its services;

• well managed and operationally effective, having in place robust and efficient systems and processes relating to all aspects of its activities; and

• underpinned by a strong service ethos which places students and staff at the forefront of all its activities.

Communication

• To work constructively with a wide range of staff in pursuit of the College’s objectives and fulfilment of its plans.

• To communicate with a wide range of individuals and organisations out with the College including the Health and Safety Executive, technical contractors and architects.

• To build close working relationships with the College Strategy Team (CST) and senior administrative and curriculum colleagues and to nurture a strong sense of teamwork among managers and staff in the Estates Department.

• To contribute effectively to the College’s strategic planning processes, with special reference to the physical environment and the physical resources strategy, in the context of supporting the College’s teaching and other business activities.

• To liaise closely with senior staff in the planning and consultation processes relating to strategic and major operational developments within Estates and to communicate such plans and activities in a range of forums where required.

• To keep under review developments at a national level relating to Estates to assess their implication for the College, and disseminate information and ideas within the College as appropriate

Teamwork and Motivation:

• To ensure the provision of strategic leadership for and the effective management of the department, ensuring the department interacts appropriately and works collaboratively towards the goals of the College.

• To provide strategic leadership and direct management control of employees and contractors involved in a broad range of key functions including the management and co-ordination of major strategic capital projects, the programme of reactive and long term maintenance programmes, all elements of the operations and services infrastructure of the College, the management and analysis of space utilisation, the maintenance and upgrading of key data systems relating to the College estate, carbon management projects, and health and safety.

• These responsibilities extend to the leadership of major project teams involving the chairing of meetings of senior technical project staff and consultants, including senior staff both external and internal to the College.

• To undertake the line management of the Estates Management Team (Estates Manager and Estates Officer) who are responsible for staff within their specialist functions.

• To provide leadership to all staff in the department, ensuring that the necessary skill and competency levels are in place, developed or acquired and that a strong service ethos is inculcated and maintained.

• To keep the departmental skill mix under review to ensure that the College is able to operate as an informed client in all aspects of its estate and facility management activities and procure in-house or contracted resources as necessary.

Liaison and Networking

• A significant degree of autonomy will be afforded to the post holder in order to maintain links with curriculum and support departments as required across the College. In addition, the post holder will be expected to maintain close links with other institutions, sectors and relevant professional bodies and will be expected to represent the College with confidence and assurance in a range of professional contexts.

• To report to the College Strategy Team (CST) Wider Management Group on estates and facilities developments and priorities.

• To establish and convene, as necessary, relevant functional groups within the College.

• To chair specific estates and facilities management related Project Groups as required.

• To be responsible for the Estates Department’s engagement with external professional consultancy and professional practices in the delivery of effective and cost-efficient services to the College.

• To chair meetings of external contractors to ensure the effective coordination of estate and environmental projects including large scale, high value new builds and refurbishment projects.

Service Delivery

• To provide a range of high quality services for College staff, students and other clients across the various College site.

• To provide, procure and develop effective and efficient facilities management services, based upon the highest professional and business standards.

• To provide advice and guidance to the College on all aspects of health, safety and environmental matters and to ensure legislative compliance with all health and safety requirements.

• To demonstrate and promote a strong service ethos throughout the department.

• To maintain the highest levels of service delivery to staff and students of the College.

• To organise the work of the department to ensure a customer-facing approach at all times.

• To be aware of and take into account in managing the work of the department the requirements of diversity and equality in a large public organisation.

Decision Making

• To report to the Assistant Principal (Finance & Operations) and advise the College Strategy Team (CST) on budgetary, strategic and major operational Estates matters.

• To be responsible for providing informed, timely and accurate advice to the CST on all major aspects of Estates and Facilities Management, for example, providing detailed technical advice on the appointment of relevant professional services and the determination of procurement methods and associated costs in accordance with the College’s financial regulations.

• A significant amount of autonomy in judgement and action will be required by the post holder in implementing the decisions of the Assistant Principal (Finance & Operations) and CST on relevant matters.

• To work on his/her own initiative, reporting formally to the Assistant Principal (Finance & Operations) on strategic issues, on the progress of individual projects, and on the management and operational effectiveness of the department.

• To inform strategic decisions by producing the briefs and strategic plans for development of the College’s estate and facilities.

• To advise on the formulation of, and be responsible for, the Department’s annual budget and capital investments, to ensure that all operations and development activities, including major capital projects, are provided or delivered at optimum cost efficiency.

• On behalf of the College, as directed by the Assistant Principal (Finance & Operations) to negotiate contracts with external providers on a range of Facilities Management projects.

Planning and Organising Resources

• To be responsible for all aspects of the planning and organising of resources in support of key strategic capital projects.

• To be responsible for the planning, allocation and management of resources, both physical and financial, to ensure that all essential functions and services relating to estates and facilities management within the College operate effectively and efficiently.

• These responsibilities will link directly to the implementation of the College’s Estates and Accommodation Strategy requiring long term planning and deployment of substantial resources to ensure that the strategic objectives for the development of the estate are met.

• The strategic and operational planning and organisation of resources for all aspects of Estates and Facilities will be a primary function of the role. This will include responsibility, through the management of the Estates department, to undertake all duties listed below.

• To manage Departmental staff across the range of functions including recruitment, training and development, and to plan and develop the Departmental staffing profile to ensure the fulfilment of the College’s requirements in Estates

• To prepare, balance and manage the budgets within the Department and properly administer the funds allocated in accordance with the College Financial Regulations.

• To develop, manage and maintain the implementation of a 5 year rolling planned maintenance and capital programme.

• To procure and control all sub-contracted building work on College premises and for drawing up programmes of refurbishment, adaptation and alterations to existing buildings within a minor works programme.

• To monitor the progression of all maintenance and service contracts ensuring all specifications are met within agreed time, budget and quality requirements.

• To liaise with external design and consultancy professionals and to act as the College’s representative on new projects.

• To prepare an integrated estates strategy with reference to the College’s Strategic Plan.

• To prepare, produce and present an annual Business Plan for the Estates department.

• To be responsible for, and contribute positively to the College’s implementation of diversity and equality legislation, regulations, equality schemes and best practice as they apply to all work undertaken by staff within the department or, under its auspices, by external contractors and in liaison with the College’s Diversity’s officer.

• To co-ordinate the preparation and production of the design briefs which include technical specifications for large projects.

• To liaise with the ESFA and the SFCA and other external agencies as necessary on capital building projects and with local authorities on planning questions.

• To ensure maintenance of the College’s playing fields and grounds and sports and recreational facilities.

• To ensure that new build and refurbishment works meet current best practice for environmental sustainability.

• To design and implement an energy conservation programme utilising new technologies to reduce costs and meet environmental carbon emissions and to monitor, analyse and reduce energy consumption.

• To provide advice to CST and internally as required to heads of department and the Wider Management Group regarding Estates projects.

• To manage the workload of the team and self effectively and efficiently.

Initiative and Problem Solving

• To manage all budgetary and staffing issues within the Estates department.

• To work with the Director of Finance and the Assistant Principal (Finance & Operations) to balance the College’s estates capital and revenue budgets against College-wide needs and plans for estate and environment projects.

• To manage complex problems which impact across the College as a whole, related to estate and environment projects including large scale, high value new builds and refurbishments.

Statutory

• To maintain under continuous review all changes to the legislative obligations of the College with regard to health and safety and environment matters.

• To advise on and, where feasible, implement best practice on matters relating to environmental management across the College.

• To ensure compliance with Health and Safety legislation and regulations with regards staff, students and external contractors.

Staff Management

• As the overall line manager for all of Estates, to support line managers within the department to manage staff absence, capability, stress issues and so on.

• To deal with more serious staffing matters and appeals, working with HR as appropriate.

Team Development

• To induct new staff with a direct reporting line, train staff as required and identify training needs through annual appraisal reviews.

• To lead the core estates team as specialists, providing scope for the members of the team to operate autonomously where appropriate and to encourage them to develop their skills, knowledge and experience, ensuring that staff take advantage of opportunities which the College provides for professional development

Other:

• To undertake any other duties which may arise and are within the scope of the post.

• To comply with all College policies and procedures. This includes those where each member of staff has an individual duty to act and for which the College can be held vicariously responsible for the actions of its employees:

• equality and diversity

• safeguarding the welfare of young people

• health and safety