THE MODERN ROLE FOR ESTATE MANAGERS


“Estate managers have an integral role to play in asset management and it is vital that this is recognised by both the estate manager and asset manager. It is about helping to deliver strategic outcomes and not merely undertaking ‘contracted’ estate management functions.”


Collectively the public sector is the largest owner of property assets in the UK and with ever increasing budget pressures it is imperative that the buildings which are owned, occupied and/or managed are done so in the most efficient way. Estate managers can play a key role in ensuring that this is the case.


However, our experience from working with numerous local authorities suggests that this is not always so. Often, estate managers simply ‘manage’ the estate taking a narrow estate management perspective without a wider recognition of the overall aims and objectives of the organisation, the requirements of the relevant service or the longer term implications of the decisions that they make.


Some estate managers can be reluctant to change the way that they have ‘always done things’ and unwilling to think beyond their traditional estate management role. Why is this? Could it be a legacy from CCT and the outsourcing of the estate management service? Is it that many estate managers still regard themselves as operating as a ‘contractor’


THE TERRIER - Summer 2012 47


Susan Robinson MRICS Susan Robinson MRICS is a Construction and Property Advisor with CIPFA Property. Her remit is to promote best practice in property asset management within the public sector. This includes the development and delivery of CIPFA’s Asset Management Network and Construction and Property Advisory Service, production of best practice briefings in relation to current topics and provision of specific consultancy projects within individual public sector organisations. Susan formerly worked at Durham County Council. susan.robinson@cipfa.org.uk


and acting only on instructions? Whatever the reason, estate managers and asset managers need to work more closely together to ensure better management of the public estate.


For such a relationship to develop, estate managers need to have a better appreciation of what asset management is all about, and how the estate manager roles sits within the overall strategic management of the authority’s property portfolio.


Asset management is often misunderstood and there are those in the property profession that see ‘asset management’ as purely a strategic function, whereas in practice it is an amalgam of a range of day-to-day activities which both support and deliver strategic outcomes (see Figure 1 below).


Figure 1


So if there is an absence of close working between estates managers and asset managers, the fault (if there is one) may not necessarily sit entirely at the feet of the estates manager. Those involved in asset management have an important part to play in promoting a strategic approach to the management of the estate, and involving others in the process. Asset managers clearly have a responsibility to engage all those that support strategic management through their day-to-day activities, including estates managers, building surveyors, facilities managers, and energy managers, amongst others.


Estate managers have an integral role to play in asset management and it is vital that this is recognised by both the estate manager and asset manager. In many local authorities the estate and


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