School Compliance Support

Key Concerns Identified

• Support on overseeing compliance across the school until the new team was in place and up to speed, working with the interim Premises Manager to fill knowledge gaps and advising the Senior Leadership Team on priorities and recommended actions.
• Training on the latest compliance guidelines by somebody who was an expert in buildings compliance, with a particular specialism in schools.
• Advice on moving the school to best value contracts for compliance matters within the school, such as water hygiene, fire safety, security and equipment maintenance.
• Strategic planning on how to improve documentation and processes around compliance and embed them to bring a proactive compliance culture around estate management and a functioning Planned Preventative Management (PPM) regime.
• A partnership with the Health & Safety leads to create a safer learning environment.
• A subject matter expert on interview panels to ensure we tested appropriate knowledge of future hires.

Outcome

By the end of the 18 months, VJA had managed to achieve the following:

1. Supported the school on finding best value suppliers and saved the school significant amounts of money on contracts. For example, the quote from the VJA recommended supplier for the school’s EICR testing was almost 50% cheaper than the previous supplier.
2. Worked together with the school to find and select the best suppliers and brought the school up to date on key compliance actions.
3. Trained multiple staff on a one-to-one practical basis and supported finding training partners for other key areas, such as legionella, risk assessments and harness training.
4. Helped the new Premises Manager revamp the PPM and plot out the schedules for all key compliance work.
5. Upskilled key members of staff with knowledge around compliance and future proofed plans for succession planning.
6. Supported with the remedial actions on important audits such as fire risk assessment and external health and safety audit with positive results.

Client Feedback

Following a recommendation, the school approached VJA Consultancy who was happy to help. John at VJA took time to understand what the school needed, how to best work with the individuals who would ultimately be responsible for compliance across the school and set long term goals to allow the school to succeed after VJA had completed their remit.

Throughout the 18 months spent working together, VJA consistently impressed with the uncompromising standards, extensive knowledge and effective techniques to educate team members with varying degrees of knowledge and responsibilities. This was all done with flexibility and a can-do approach to work within a school’s hectic and unpredictable schedules.

Conclusion

A very happy Client.