Welcome to the second part of our conversation with Clare Skinner, Business Manager at Kings Norton Girls’ School (KNGS). Earlier this year, a successful capital funding application saw the school awarded £700k from the Condition Improvement Fund.
(If you missed part 1, click the button below to catch up!)
In part 2, we hear from Clare about:
- How the school uses Every Compliance to produce evidence for capital funding applications
- The need to challenge the status-quo at KNGS
- What it takes to write a strong capital funding application bid
Rather to listen or watch the conversation? Just click the button below to access the webinar on-demand.
Getting the most out of Every Compliance
Having worked with schools and trusts implementing our compliance management system for years, Ben Tummons, one of our Senior Account Managers, knows a thing or two about the barriers school leaders come up against when changing the status-quo. He was keen to find out what’s worked for Clare when staff have responded with questions like ‘we’ve never had to do this before, so why now?’
Ben: “As a senior leader, I know that you’re working with the data [in Every Compliance] to ensure KNGS has outstanding learning environments that are safe, dry, and secure. But it needs to start in the classroom – culture is key! How have you implemented Every Compliance [with staff] so you can still get out of it what you need to secure funding?”
Clare: “I rolled it out with my operations teams first before launching it to the wider school community. You don’t have to have another login – you can link Every Compliance to your MS365 account, which makes it really accessible.”
We set it up so it’s user friendly to our operations team. When tickets are raised or activities due, they get an email notification – it's an easy way for them to manage their workload.
Changing the status-quo
C: “When it comes to reporting issues, I sold it (for want of a better phrase) to teaching and student-facing staff as ‘we [the operations team] will forget things. You might report something to us in the corridor, but a few weeks later you have to ask us again because we’d forgotten – we’re all really busy!’.
“Every Compliance is a superb aide-mémoire when it comes to raising issues. When my site team are looking through what they need to achieve, they can really prioritise what to do and where to spend money.”
Our staff and the senior leadership team trust and take on board the evidence that we have – they understand what we’re prioritising, and why.
Links between school capital funding and asset management
With the advice and insight from Clare in full flow, Ben opened the floor to questions from the webinar’s attendees. First up was a query around whether Every Compliance can be used for asset management – and if this links in with providing evidence for the capital funding application.
Audience question: ‘Clare, do you have your fixed and serviceable assets on Every Compliance – for instance, walls, windows, and boilers? Can you link your reactive maintenance tasks to those items?’
Clare’s answer: “Absolutely! All my daily, weekly, monthly activities, like boiler repairs and checking gutters, are put into Every Compliance (rather than a site team’s manual checklist). I search issues and activities in tandem, so I can see all the issues relating to a boiler and the activities linked to them.
“I attach supporting documents [to the asset’s file], like a boiler service report, to show it was done. I also attach the invoice to show how much it cost me. On Every Compliance, I can track my service level agreements so I know how much it should cost me over the year – I then match these back to my finance system.”
How to write a strong bid
Next, we put the session’s core question to Clare: how can schools and trusts best prepare resources, from condition surveys to evidence producing systems (like Every Compliance), to write a capital funding application with a strong chance of success?
C: “The CIF is open now – we have until the 17th of December 2024 to submit projects. It’s about reading the CIF application guide to really understand what the government is looking for and the projects they’re likely to fund.
“Then you can go back to your estates management plan and decide which projects to submit, asking ‘how can we make sure they’re [the bids are] successful?’. Working through the funding’s criteria (and essentially ticking it off as you go) helps to present a solid case to the ESFA about why you need it.
“I pull data out of Every Compliance regularly to act as evidence, showing the impact [of condition and maintenance issues] on teaching, learning, and expenditure. To justify it further, I use the system to produce reports that show how much we’ve spent on the estate this year.”
Working towards the strategic estate vision
B: “Once you’ve collated this condition data, you can then start to build out what the next one, two, ten years of capital projects looks like.”
C: “Exactly. This helps you think about things like replacing flat roofs. If we did this in one go, we’d be looking at a £1.5 million bid. We can’t contribute a lot to that as a school, which detracts from the attractiveness of approval for the EFSA. At the same time, would we really want to manage that in one go? Or would we rather split it into smaller projects?”
All this said, it was time for the pièce de résistance: Clare’s tips for writing a strong school capital funding bid!
Top tips for capital funding applications
- Make sure you’re hitting all the guidance for applicants.
- If your bid isn’t successful, always appeal!
Take a planned, considered approach – if your project has multiple phases, make sure you explain this to show it’s affordable and manageable to the school.
The EFSA look to fund as many bids as they can. But, breaking a project down into a bitesize approach makes it easier for them to fund more projects, rather than just the larger ones.
The future of Every Compliance at KNGS
Wrapping up the webinar, Ben asked Clare about the role she sees Every Compliance playing at KNGS in years to come. In January 2025, the single academy trust will form a MAT (with two other schools). Clare shared that conversations have already taken place around how the MAT will get an overview of assets at a trust level, rather than a single site level.
C: “I’m sure this growth will come – I can rely on Every Compliance [to scale with us] to have sight over what’s happening across the multi-site trust.”
A huge ‘thank you’ to Clare for taking the time to share her experience and advice on school capital funding.
If you’re ready to strengthen your school or trust’s future bids, get in touch to learn how Every Compliance can support you.
