Answering the annual return from your records
What each answer in the first section of the DfE's annual return rests on, where those records usually sit, and how EstatesBase holds them.
Where do the records behind the return usually sit?
In fifteen years of compliance work with schools and trusts, I have found the records behind an answer about the estate in four places at once: the document on a shared drive, the approval in a set of board minutes, the review date in someone's diary, and the link between the plan and the budget in the finance lead's head. Each of those is real. None of them, on its own, shows the answer.
In my experience the joining up is done against a deadline, often by one person. This piece takes the first section of the DfE's School estate management annual return and sets out what each of its answers rests on.
What does the return ask, and what does it leave to the organisation?
The return is open until 6pm on Monday 23 November 2026. It goes to every Responsible Body for schools that is eligible for annual DfE capital funding (local authorities, multi-academy and single-academy trusts, sixth form colleges, and dioceses for their voluntary-aided schools); individual schools do not submit it. It has 28 multiple-choice questions in six sections, and it ends by asking what stops an organisation meeting the standards. No documents are uploaded, and the DfE states that the return does not affect the funding an organisation receives.
That leaves one question with the organisation: what each answer rests on. The return records what the Responsible Body declares. The record behind each declaration is the organisation's own, wherever it is kept.
What does each answer in the first section rest on?
The first section, strategic estate management, is the clearest place to see it. Most of its questions turn on a document: whether it exists, what it covers, and when it was last looked at.
"Does your organisation have an estate vision?" A yes rests on a high-level statement of the estate's priorities and of how current and future education needs will be met; that is the DfE's own description, and the question sets no approval condition. The DfE's Good Estate Management for Schools guidance separately expects the board to approve the vision formally as part of business planning. Where a draft is still being written, the DfE offers "Not yet, but we are working on a first draft".
"Does your organisation have an estate strategy which outlines investment plans for the next 3 to 5 years?" A yes rests on the strategy and on its horizon. The options separate a strategy whose investment plans run for less than three years, so the period the document covers matters as much as the document.
"Does your organisation review the estate strategy at least once a year?" The DfE describes a review as checking that the organisation's current progress, risks and priorities are reflected in the strategy, and says it can be informal or a formal process involving trustees or a governing board. A yes rests on knowing when the last review took place and what it found.
"What does your organisation's asset management plan include?" The options are actions to achieve the estate strategy, actions to maintain the estate, and data about the estate. Each box ticked rests on the plan holding that element.
"Does your organisation have a plan for climate action?" The DfE notes that the plan might have a different name or be part of a larger strategic document, so the first step in answering is finding where it lives. The question after it, "Which climate goals are included in your organisation's plans?", rests on the plan naming each goal ticked. One of the goals offered, embedding climate education and green skills into the curriculum, rests on the school's own teaching rather than on an estate record.
What if the honest answer is not yet?
Then the honest answer is the one to give. Where a draft is in progress, "Not yet, but we are working on a first draft" is the DfE's own option on the vision, the strategy and the climate action plan; where there is no draft, "No" is the honest answer. The DfE says the return is there to help a Responsible Body understand the levels it is meeting and to tell the DfE how the standards are being followed and what support might be needed, and an accurate answer serves both. What moves the answer on is the document itself. A target date for it, in the organisation's own record, is where that work starts.
How does EstatesBase hold the records for the first section?
In EstatesBase, the estate strategy and the asset management plan are governed documents at trust and site level, with the estate vision above them. The board's approval of each of the three is held as a sign-off record that cannot be edited afterwards. The strategy and the plan carry tracked review dates, and an overdue strategy review is raised as a gap. Every action in the asset management plan links to the condition findings, maintenance jobs and projects that deliver it, and the climate action plan is a board-signed document on its own review cycle, broken into tracked actions.
Those records are mapped to the 28 questions in the six sections the DfE publishes. Each question is read against the records that evidence it and shown as confirmed, absent, out of date, or records that disagree. Disagreement is checked on three pairs of records the system ships with, each of which the organisation switches on or off; where a pair is switched off, those two records are not checked against each other, so the question can read as confirmed while they disagree. Where the evidence for a question sits at each site, each site is read on its own, so in a trust the site view and the organisation view differ where the sites do.
The annual return sits in the board's approval queue among its formal approvals, and the evidence pack behind it carries the attestations that the person named as responsible for the estate has given on the board's reports. The pack is frozen and every file in it is hashed, so the record behind the return can be read later as it stood.
What about the other five sections?
The same reading applies, with different records. Planning and organising your estate resources asks, among other things, about the board's oversight of the estate, the named person, continuity plans, contractor due diligence, budget forecasts and procurement. Understanding and managing your land and buildings asks about condition data, the information the organisation holds, the terms on which it occupies its land and buildings, its digital building management systems and its insurance. Maintaining your estate asks whether systems are in place for compliance with health and safety law, and what the plan for managing and inspecting the estate includes; there the answer rests on whether the checks were done and evidenced, as well as scheduled. Sustainability asks about a nominated lead, and digital technology about whether estate planning includes digital infrastructure.
Some of those answers rest on records a system can hold. Some, such as the terms on which the land is occupied, are the organisation's own to establish, and EstatesBase holds nothing against them. The return does not distinguish between the two. The organisation answering it needs to.
How EstatesBase holds the DfE framework is set out on the DfE framework page.
Frequently asked questions
Does EstatesBase submit the return for us?
No. The organisation enters its return in the DfE's portal. EstatesBase holds the records behind each answer.
Do individual schools submit a return?
No. The Responsible Body submits one return. Where the evidence for a question sits at each site, EstatesBase reads each site on its own as well as the organisation as a whole.
We have already submitted this year's return. Is this still useful?
Yes. The record behind each answer is the one to keep through the year, and the return is annual.
What happens when two of our records disagree?
EstatesBase checks three pairs of records for disagreement, and the organisation decides which of the three apply. Where a checked pair disagrees, the question shows as records that disagree. A pair the organisation switches off is not checked, so those two records can disagree without the question showing it. Other disagreements are not checked by the system.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Question wording and statements from the School estate management annual return questions (Department for Education, August 2026) and the School estate management annual return guidance (Department for Education, July 2026, updated September 2026), lightly edited for layout.
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