What should a school or trust look for in a compliance, maintenance and CAFM system?
By Richard Bunting | Founder, EstatesBase. 14 November 2026.
Look for nine things. The system should be built for education and the Department for Education (DfE) framework, site staff should do the work on a phone, and statutory compliance should arrive set up. Planned maintenance and the reactive helpdesk should share one record, with the asset register, your condition survey, your contractors and health and safety beside them. The board should have its own view, and the price and the route in for your history should be published.
For each of the nine there is a question to put to any supplier. This guide gives it, followed by what EstatesBase does.
Who is writing, and what is EstatesBase?
I founded EstatesBase, so this is a supplier's guide and should be read as one. I have spent twenty years developing software for education, and the nine questions below are the ones I would ask if I sat on your side of the table. They are written to be put to every supplier, including us.
EstatesBase is one system for statutory compliance, planned and reactive maintenance, asset and condition management, and health and safety, with contractor management and board assurance on the same record. It is the estate operating system for education, built around the DfE framework.
CAFM stands for computer aided facilities management. For organisations looking for a CAFM system: EstatesBase covers the asset register, planned maintenance, the reactive helpdesk and contractors, locates assets to the room and records condition against each building and space, and holds statutory compliance, health and safety and the board's evidence on the same record.
The guide is written for a single school, a multi-academy trust (MAT) and a college. The standards, the maturity levels and the annual return described under the first and eighth questions are the schools framework. Further education colleges have their own: the Further Education Estate Management Standards, published on 15 July 2026. Sixth form colleges fall under the schools framework.
1. Is it built for education and mapped to the DfE framework?
The DfE published the School Estate Management Standards (SEMS) in April 2025. They describe four maturity levels. The first annual return, in autumn 2026, has 28 multiple choice questions in six sections and is made by each 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. An individual school does not submit one. The DfE states that the return does not affect the funding an organisation receives.
Separately, the Education Estates Strategy (February 2026) sets out a new programme that replaces the Condition Improvement Fund by autumn 2028, so that eligible Responsible Bodies no longer submit full bids and capital maintenance funding is allocated on evidence. The strategy does not say that an organisation's own system records are that evidence. A system chosen now is simply where its condition, compliance and asset records will be kept.
The question to ask: which DfE documents was the system built from, and can you show me, on screen, where my organisation would stand against the standards?
What EstatesBase does. It is built around four documents: the Education Estates Strategy, the Estate Management Standards, Good Estate Management for Schools and the Estate Management Competency Framework. It is kept current against the wider published DfE guidance. Records are mapped to the six sections and 28 questions the DfE publishes for the annual return. For each section the board sees the platform's reading of the organisation's maturity, up to the level the return assesses that section to. It is the platform's reading of your records and never the DfE's, and where nothing is confirmed it is shown as not yet evidenced. How the framework is held is set out on the DfE framework page.
2. Will site staff do the work on a phone?
The record starts with the person who does the check. If the result is not recorded where the work happens, somebody rebuilds the record later from memory and paper.
The question to ask: show me a caretaker completing a statutory check on a phone, from the task list to the evidence, and then show me the same thing with no signal.
What EstatesBase does. The site team works in an app installed on an iPhone or an Android phone. It shows each person their task list, each task asks for the checks and readings its record needs, and the photo is taken inside the task. Scanning the QR tag on an asset opens its record and its open tasks. The core work (tasks, completions, fault reports, incident records, photos and video) carries on without a signal: it is held on the phone and sent automatically when the connection returns. A member of staff without the app, or without an account, reports a fault through the staff portal: the form asks what and where, takes a photo and returns a reference number. The screens below are from the app. More are on the site team app page.
3. Does statutory compliance arrive set up?
In my experience, much of the work of adopting compliance software is building the schedule: which checks apply, how often, and on what legal basis. Ask what the supplier has already done, and whether you can read it before you buy.
The question to ask: what compliance schedule does the system ship with, what is the legal basis of each task, and can anyone set a statutory check to run less often than the law requires?
What EstatesBase does. It ships with 125 compliance tasks: 27 that apply to every setting and 98 that switch on where the provision exists. Each carries its legal basis and its statutory minimum frequency, and no user or bulk edit can set a task to run less often than that minimum. Evidence is captured as data, field by field for each type of task, with documents and photos attached in support. A task that is only partly completed is recorded as a gap, and the gap stays open until a manager closes it. The full schedule is free to read before you see the system: The Standard Schedule is on the Resources page.
4. Are planned maintenance and the reactive helpdesk on the same record?
A failed check, the repair that follows and the planned maintenance (PPM) that should have prevented it are one story. Kept apart, the thread between them is hard to follow.
The question to ask: when a statutory check fails, what happens next, and can I follow it from the failed check to the finished repair?
What EstatesBase does. It ships with 45 planned preventive maintenance tasks, running on the same engine as the compliance tasks, and each one is switched on by the organisation. Every fault, repair and service request runs through one pipeline from submission to evidenced resolution, with an audit trail, whether it is raised by scanning a QR tag, through the staff portal, by a manager, or from a failed compliance finding. When a compliance task records a failed finding, a follow-up action is raised with its source filled in, the task and the action each show the other, and the task shows amber until the last action closes. Every request shows one of seven fixed statuses, from received to closed. Maintenance jobs are tracked from creation to completion, whether raised from a request, a condition survey finding or a line in the maintenance plan.
5. Does it hold the asset register and turn a condition survey into managed work?
A condition survey is a large piece of work, and in my experience it too often ends its life as a filed PDF. The test of a system is what happens to the findings.
The question to ask: after a condition survey, where do the findings go, and how would I see which of them have been dealt with?
What EstatesBase does. The asset register ships with a catalogue of 678 asset types. Every asset has its own QR tag, printed from the system as a label. Fitting tags across an estate is your own work, or one of the onsite services charged at a day rate. Condition is recorded on the DfE's condition survey scale (grade A to D, repair priority 1 to 4) and kept over time. A commissioned survey is imported in bulk, with a report on every row, or findings are assessed in-house. Each finding then becomes a managed work item with its grade, cost and priority, and a status that runs to verified completion. The system records and manages a finding. It never performs or interprets a survey. Statutory compliance does not wait for the asset register: it runs in full with no assets loaded.
6. Can contractors be vetted and managed in it?
Much statutory work is done by contractors, so their insurance, their accreditations and the checks made before they start belong on the same record as the work itself.
The question to ask: how does the system stop a contractor starting before their insurance, their accreditation and the asbestos register check are confirmed, and what does it do when a credential lapses?
What EstatesBase does. An approved contractor register is held for the whole organisation, so in a trust every school sees the trust's list, plus any contractors it has added itself. Each contractor's record holds insurance, accreditations and the qualifications of named individuals, each with its expiry tracked and flagged. Before work starts, a pre-works stage confirms method statements, insurance and accreditation, the asbestos register check (mandatory for work that disturbs the fabric of the building), the site information shared and the contractor's acknowledgement. Only management can bypass that stage, with a recorded reason, and a bypass is shown as a bypass. Whether credential checks are tracked or enforced is the organisation's own setting, and enforcement is not switched on by default. Where the organisation enforces them, a lapsed critical credential blocks a new engagement and flags an open one. Where it tracks them, the lapse is flagged and recorded and the work continues. A contractor does not need a login: every step can be completed by your own staff.
7. Is health and safety in the same system?
An incident often has an estate cause, and a risk assessment often rests on a compliance check. An incident record and a compliance record kept apart have to be joined by hand.
The question to ask: is health and safety a separate product, and would an incident be linked to the job, the request or the condition finding it relates to?
What EstatesBase does. Health and safety runs in the same system as estates compliance: incidents and near misses, risk assessments and inspections, with the compliance tasks for hazardous substances (COSHH), fire and asbestos linked both ways to the risk assessments that cover them. Any member of staff reports an incident or near miss, on the staff form or on a form that needs no account, and is given a reference. An incident or inspection finding that is linked to a job, a request or a condition finding is counted on the board's health and safety card. An incident that may be reportable under RIDDOR (the regulations for reporting injuries, diseases and dangerous occurrences) is flagged from what was recorded, and the decision stays open on the case file with the statutory deadlines shown. Risk assessments are scored on a five by five matrix, which the organisation can change.
8. What will the board see?
For academy trusts, the Academy Trust Handbook 2026 places estate management within a trust board's responsibilities from 1 October 2026. Whatever the type of organisation, the people accountable for the estate need to see its position without asking someone to assemble it.
The question to ask: what will our board see, where does each figure come from, and who confirms it is accurate before the board reads it?
What EstatesBase does. The board has its own view, open only at board level, and it is derived from the record of what has been done, not reported separately. In a trust it opens across all the trust's sites, with each site available beneath it. It shows the compliance position across twelve compliance streams, the platform's reading of the organisation's maturity against the standards, and a readiness indicator for the annual return that reads each question against the records behind it and separates evidence that is absent from evidence that is out of date. Before each board report, the person named as responsible for the estate attests to its operational accuracy, in a dated record that cannot be changed afterwards and that is separate from the board's own sign-off.
9. What does it cost, and how do we get our history in?
Two things decide whether a business case survives: the whole price, and what happens to the records you already hold.
The question to ask: is the whole price published, what is charged on top of it, and what will your import tell me it rejected?
What EstatesBase does. The full rate card is on the Pricing page. As published on 14 November 2026, schools and trusts pay £3.00 per pupil per year, with a minimum of £360 per school (the minimum applies below 120 pupils), £1.50 per pupil per year above 1,000 pupils and a cap of £3,750 per school (reached at 1,500 pupils). Colleges are priced per site, in bands set by gross internal floor area: £2,000 per year for a small site (under 5,000 square metres), £4,000 for a standard site (5,000 to 20,000 square metres) and £6,000 for a large site (over 20,000 square metres). Users are unlimited, there are no modules and there is no setup fee. The term is a three year term, billed annually: you are invoiced one year at a time, and the commitment is three years.
Seven things are charged at a day rate, because they are onsite or bespoke: onsite asset audits and surveys, including QR tagging; onsite training beyond the included remote onboarding and training; bespoke system development; bespoke form and workflow development beyond standard configuration; bespoke dashboards and advanced reporting beyond standard configuration; bespoke integrations of any kind; and data cleansing and legacy data transformation. If it is not on that list, it is in the licence. The day rate is quoted in writing before any such work is agreed.
On history: an organisation brings its existing compliance history in by import, with each record marked as migrated, and can import its asset register in bulk against a published template. Every import reports what it accepted, what it rejected and why, and never overwrites existing data automatically.
What can a system not do for you?
It cannot supply the people, or take the decisions that belong to the organisation. A system holds the record of what was decided and done. Who is responsible, what the estate strategy says and what the board approves remain yours.
EstatesBase and The Estates Strategy Partnership are two parts of one estates capability. The partnership advises on governance, capability and how the estate function is organised and run. EstatesBase is where the estate is recorded, managed and its evidence held. Each is complete on its own. More on how the two work together.
Frequently asked questions
What does EstatesBase cover for an organisation looking for a CAFM system?
For organisations looking for a CAFM system: EstatesBase covers the asset register, planned maintenance, the reactive helpdesk and contractors, locates assets to the room and records condition against each building and space, and holds statutory compliance, health and safety and the board's evidence on the same record. If your specification expects a function that is not named here, ask us about it directly.
Is this guide independent?
No. It is written by the founder of EstatesBase. The nine questions are meant to be put to every supplier, including EstatesBase, so ask us to show you each one.
Does the same system suit one school and a multi-academy trust?
Yes. EstatesBase runs on a four-level structure (the legal entity, a cluster, the site and the building), and a level an organisation does not have is not shown. A single school and a large multi-academy trust use the same system.
Do we need an asset register before we can start?
No. The compliance schedule runs whether or not an asset register is loaded. Conditional tasks switch on from what the organisation declares it has, and asset records add detail afterwards.
What does the annual return have to do with choosing a system?
The return is self-declared: 28 multiple choice questions, with no documents uploaded, and the DfE states that it does not affect funding. An organisation answering it will want its records to hand, and a system chosen now is where those records will be kept.
Can we see EstatesBase before we decide?
Yes. Book a Consultation: see EstatesBase working, from a site team phone to the board view, and talk through how it would work in your organisation.
Sources: School Estate Management Standards (Department for Education, April 2025); Education Estates Strategy (Department for Education, February 2026); Further Education Estate Management Standards (Department for Education, July 2026); School estate management annual return questions and guidance (Department for Education, 2026); Academy Trust Handbook 2026. EstatesBase figures are as the system ships and as the Pricing page publishes them on 14 November 2026.
Book a Consultation: see EstatesBase working, from a site team phone to the board view, and talk through how it would work in your organisation.
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