Tackle the UK University Funding Crisis

Jennifer Williams: Hi, everyone, and welcome to today’s webinar. Thank you for taking the time to join us. So my name is Jennifer Williams, and I’m joined by my colleague, Sebastian Etchells.

Sebastian Etchells: Hi, everyone. Yeah, my name’s Seb, as Jenny says. I’m one of our enterprise account executives here at SFG20, with a particular focus on universities, working with a, a number of you over the last few months, so I’m very aware of the sort of challenges you have and how we can look to help with that.

Jennifer Williams: And just to let you know before we begin, we do like to encourage all of our participants to interact in our webinars, so you can do this by taking part in our upcoming polls, and they’ll, they’ll come up on the screen for you on the right-hand side. And if you have any questions at all, please put them into the chat or simply in the Q&A tab that’s also found on the right-hand side of your screen, and we’ll answer these questions in the upcoming Q&A section of the webinar.

But don’t worry if we’re not able to answer your question today, because we will respond to your query via the email that you provided when you registered for the webinar.

So as the recognised UK industry standard for building maintenance specification, SFG20 works closely with many universities across the country to support the safe and effective management of their buildings, and it’s through this collaboration that we’ve gained a really strong understanding of the unique complexities and challenges faced within the higher education sector.

So let’s start by exploring these challenges in more detail

So according to Universities UK, due to changing government policies, many UK universities are now facing financial challenges, namely an estimated one point five billion pounds in funding cuts. And some of the contributing factors to these cuts include falling international student numbers, a declining birth rate, and an increasing uptake of competing options such as paid employment and degree apprenticeships to avoid student debt.

So as a result, many universities are now resorting to reduced investment in repairs and maintenance to help cut costs, and this is making the job of university FM teams much harder

According to a 2025 Universities UK report, 60% of higher education institutions have scaled back on facility repairs and maintenance due to financial constraints, with 89% potentially needing to do so within three years. This is forcing universities to defer maintenance, and this is risking safety, increasing long-term costs, and impacting the student experience and safety

Let’s talk about deferred maintenance and the consequences of this. Budget reductions are a widespread issue in the education sector, where maintenance is often deferred, i.e. delayed or cancelled to save money. And often, universities have no other choice but to prioritise day-to-day operational costs over long-term upkeep, i.e. planned preventative maintenance or PPM. Yet this is counterproductive, as PPM is known to help manage operational expenditure and reduce costs over time. Deferred maintenance ultimately leads to more significant asset failures, inefficient operations, and unnecessary costs. In fact, the Cabinet Office has estimated that allowing backlog maintenance to go unresolved can increase costs by over one point five times over two to four years.

And this all leads to an even bigger dilemma. Without the right funding and resources to carry out the work required, education facilities are finding themselves stuck in a vicious cycle of non-compliance, which could be putting staff and children at risk. So we’re just going to put a poll up on everyone’s screens right now, and if you could all just take the time to respond, that would be greatly appreciated.

And you can choose more than one option here

I’ll just let you all take the time to do that. Thank you

And following on from the previous poll, we’re just gonna put another poll up on the screen as well, and this one is around how concerned are you that deferred maintenance could lead to a compliance or safety issue? I’ll just give you all a few moments

Okay, moving on. So for universities, cutting back on repairs and maintenance, especially those required by law, will put your organisation at risk. Delayed upkeep not only risks student and staff safety, but can also result in increased fines, legal exposure, wasted budgets, as well as unexpected breakdowns.

Each icon you can see here represents real-life examples of the cost of doing nothing, and ultimately the consequences of non-compliance. These are all examples of negligence costing organisations far more than carrying out the correct maintenance in the first place. So let’s chat through some practical strategies now that you can put in place to help your budget stretch further among funding cuts.

Your first activity should be establishing the level of risk tolerance your organisation has in terms of its exposure to risk. Your risk tolerance defines how much risk an organisation is prepared to take to achieve its strategic objectives. While risk appetite is the level and type of risk an organisation is willing to accept in pursuit of its goals before action is needed to reduce it.

Using a risk register, you can identify risks, see if it’s within the established risk appetite, and see the associated costs or time implications. From this, a risk rank/risk score can then be determined, followed by the production of a dedicated risk resolution action plan for each risk. This will help to prevent, reduce, promote its occurrence or impact, and this will allow you to understand the impact and consequences of each potential risk and the probability of it happening.

So each risk will need to be assigned to an appropriate team member, commonly known as a risk owner, who will be responsible for its associated monitoring, monitoring and risk mitigation action plan. Fundamentally, a risk register can help you to assess and rank maintenance needs and ensure that the most urgent issues are addressed first, i.e.

those that directly affect staff and student safety and/or will become costly later down the line. It’s important to be aware that risk registers are not static documents, but rather they’re ongoing. So this means that they n- they need to be constantly reviewed and updated

The best way to maintain your building is to know what you have inside of it. Asset registers ensure that all building assets are accounted for and therefore able to be scheduled for maintenance works and repairs appropriately. This reduces the risk of unexpected failures, failures, and compliance risks.

The biggest problem with asset registers is that most of their data is incomplete or even missing in some cases. Whether it’s lost during the handover process at the end of construction or passed across ineffectively between different parties during the life of the assets, this can make working with asset registers frustrating at best and impossible at worst.

An up-to-date asset register ensures that your site-specific equipment is logged, tagged, and managed on a central system. This system allows for accurate maintenance procedures to be added individually according to the req- the requirements of the asset. This means that maintenance activities are carried out in line with statutory requirements, reducing the risk of costly breakdowns.

So if you don’t have an asset register for each of your buildings, you’ll need to prioritise getting them in place. If you’re struggling with inaccurate and inconsistent data, it’s great to know that SFG20’s professional services team can step in to help you to improve the quality of the data held within your asset register

Delays in maintenance works, especially those that are critical, can lead to compromised student and staff safety, disruption to learning, and further costs further down the line. Making sure those responsible for maintenance of your estate are fully aware of their statutory obligations and the most critical tasks for optimal functioning is essential to reducing disruption and ensuring student and staff safety.

So non-statutory building maintenance tasks differ from statutory building maintenance tasks in that they don’t have any traceable references to primary or secondary legislation. However, this doesn’t always mean that they are any less vital to an organisation’s operation, as non-statutory building maintenance tasks are often used to prevent premature failure of an asset, minimising disruption and cost to businesses.

For example, faulty light bulbs would cause considerable disruption in a room used for university exams. By following SFG20’s pre-built compliant maintenance schedules, you can easily understand what you’re legally required to maintain, as well as what tasks are critical for your organisation and sector, and therefore which ones aren’t.

All of our schedules in Facilities-iQ, our intelligent software solution, are colour-coded based on their criticality level, and this will help you stay vigilant of those statutory or legal tasks. So let’s take a look at our colour-coding system in more detail. Red tasks are classified as statutory, which means that they’re a legal requirement.

Amber tasks are classified as optimal, so this means that they are not legally required, but they can have a serious impact to your operation if the asset were to fail. For example, unexpected shutdowns and emergency repair work. Finally, green tasks are classified as discretionary. This means that they are non-critical maintenance.

So by maintaining your assets in compliance with the law, you can ultimately control your risk

Once your asset register is in shape and you understand your statutory obligations, your next task is to identify the correct maintenance for each of your assets. However, this process often isn’t easy. In fact, it can be near impossible for some organisations. Why? Because it’s manual, time-consuming, and it often relies on human judgment, which can lead to inaccuracies.

Using SFG20 Mobiliser, our AI-powered asset mapping tool, you can quickly and accurately identify the correct schedules for your assets and save up to 95% of your time compared to doing this manually. SFG20 Mobiliser can be used in conjunction with our software solution Facilities-iQ, which we’ll talk about in more detail later on.

So what used to be a very long, tedious process has now been dramatically shortened down, and even if your data quality is poor or stored in multiple places, SFG20 Mobiliser enables you to equip your asset register with the correct maintenance activities which are unique to your assets. From this, you, you can then forecast the budget to do all the tasks required to achieve compliance with the law.

It’s really important that you communicate this to your stakeholders because this is how you showcase exactly what budget you need. In each SFG20 maintenance schedule, you can see the task criticality, how many tasks are involved, how long they take, and how often they need to be performed. You’ll also be able to see the required skill set for each task to determine if you already have a competent person on site and can therefore save money on outsourcing.

Forecasting future costs and risks backed by data rather than assumption gives FM teams a much stronger position when making the case to leadership. We’re now going to put another poll up on your screen, and this time it’s around what is the biggest barrier to making data-driven maintenance decisions, and again, you can choose more than one option here.

I’ll just give, give everybody a moment to do this. Thank you

Universities operate in high pressure environments where precision matters, expectations are high, and operational disruption is unacceptable. Some universities also have estates containing high-rise residential buildings that fall within the scope of the Building Safety Act ’22, and this brings additional responsibilities.

For many universities, the challenge is not simply whether maintenance is being carried out, but whether it’s being carried out in the right way, at the right frequency, and by the right people, and whether that approach can be clearly evidenced. Where maintenance is outsourced, the challenge becomes even greater.

Although delivery may sit with an external provider, accountability does not disappear. Building owners still need the confidence that maintenance is compliant, up-to-date, and properly documented, particularly where building safety and responsibilities are, are concerned. And this is why a structured maintenance approach matters.

By using a recognised maintenance standard like SFG20, you can achieve the consistency, clarity, and control needed to support safer, more efficient, and more operationally resilient university buildings

SFG20 helps organisations to create this structure. We are industry standard for building maintenance se- specification, used and advocated by thousands of customers worldwide and supporting facilities managers, building owners, FM con- contractors, and consultants. SFG20 offers a comprehensive solution across three core areas, these being content, software, and professional services, where we offer consultancy services.

However, we’re best known for our extensive library of over 1,500 expertly authored building maintenance schedules, which can be used to maintain all assets within a multitude of building types. SFG20’s full-time team of technical authors create and upkeep the standard in line with current legislation, regulations, and standards, translating complex legislative information into actionable maintenance schedules.

And whenever the standard changes, we provide automated update notifications and give you a side-by-side comparison of what’s changed. This then allows you to implement these changes at a time that best suits you. So all of our schedules can be accessed through Facilities-iQ, which is our intelligent software solution.

Facilities-iQ covers all aspects of building fabric and asset maintenance, and it’s the best way to access and get maximum value from SFG20 as it allows you to stay on top of updates to the standard via our automated notifications. Inside Facilities-iQ, you can set up maintenance regimes and then use our application programming interface or our API to easily integrate your maintenance regime into your operational systems such as CAFM software to create your maintenance plan and actually schedule the works.

So, what are the benefits of using a recognised maintenance standard? Firstly, it supports compliance. With clearly defined maintenance tasks aligned to legislation and industry best practice, you can be confident that nothing critical will be missed, helping you to meet your statutory obligations.

There’s also improved cost efficiency. By understand the, understanding the correct maintenance tasks needed for each asset, SFG20 helps you to better focus your resources and prevent both under and over maintenance, which can be equally costly. It also brings greater consistency across your estate. So whether you are managing a single site or multiple buildings, a standardised approach ensures that maintenance is carried out in the same way to the same level every time.

Another major advantage is that it reduces guesswork. Instead of relying on individual judgment or varying levels of ex- expertise and experience, teams have clear guidance on what needs to be done, when and how, and this naturally leads to stronger audit readiness. When maintenance activities are structured and documented against a recognised standard, it becomes much easier to demonstrate compliance during audits or inspections.

Using the SFG20 standard also enables more informed decision-making. With a clear framework in place, you can better understand your maintenance requirements, prioritise effectively, and allocate resources where they’re needed most. And finally, SFG20 provides clearer governance for outsourced maintenance.

When working with contractors, a defined standard sets expectations up front, making it easier to manage performance, ensure accountability, and maintain quality across external providers

I’d now like to share with you all an example of how these benefits work in practice. So we recently spoke to the University of Leeds, and they told us that SFG20 has helped their team to foster a more consistent approach to maintenance, strengthened collaboration with third-party contractors, and boosted the university’s overall compliance standing by 20% in just 12 months.

They also shared that SFG20 has enabled them to put all of their asset types into core groups and actually have a holistic understanding of what their impact and, and intensity looks like, and also, most importantly, in understanding the amount of time, resources, and money needed for each area.

SFG20 provides a trusted baseline for planned maintenance and a framework that can be tailored to the reali- the realities of each site, asset base, and operating model. The benefit of tailoring the standard is that it allows you to focus on the assets that are operationally important to your organisation.

This means that SFG20 is most effective when used as a baseline rather than as a fixed template. No two university buildings will ever be the same, and so the best results come from when the standard is applied to the specific building, operational environment, and the assets actually installed and maintained.

SFG20 can help organisations move away from assumption and towards a more practical, controlled, and evidence-based maintenance model that will ultimately help you to achieve compliance.

Okay, it’s time for our Q&A. So it looks like we’ve had a few great questions come in, so I’ll just start with the first one here, which is, what warning signs suggest that a university estate is accumulating a maintenance backlog?

Sebastian Etchells: Typically it’s an increase in reactive repairs. As usually that’s the first sign, followed by more frequent breakdowns of the same assets. So aging infrastructure combined with ongoing pressures, budget pressures should I say, tends to compound the problem further. Thank you.

Jennifer Williams: We have another question here, which is, why can delaying maintenance actually increase costs?

Sebastian Etchells: Small issues left unresolved tend to escalate into a larger, more expensive repair and, and can also shorten the life cycle of the asset. So emergency fixes tend to cost more than planned ones, and disruptions to operations can add further costs on top. So acting as early as possible always, almost always is the cheaper option.

Jennifer Williams: Yeah. Agreed. We have another question here, and it says, “If you can only fix a few things this year, how do you decide what comes first?”

Sebastian Etchells: Good question. I’d say starting with anything that carries a safety or statutory compliance risk, would be the priority since that removes the most exposure. From there, prioritise based on the likelihood or the impact of the failure of each asset. Rather than tackling lower priority issues, addresses, addressing critical risks deliver the greatest value and protects the safety and compliance of the building.

Jennifer Williams: Great. Thank you. Somebody has asked, “What’s the connection between asset data quality and compliance?”

Sebastian Etchells: Poor data quality means assets can be missing from your asset register, which also ultimately means that maintenance can get missed too, and that creates an audit challenge because you can’t evidence compliance for something you didn’t know you had. Good data is the starting point too, for demonstrating compliance.

Jennifer Williams: Great. Thank you. We have another question here. This one is around can non-statutory maintenance still be business critical?

Sebastian Etchells: Yes. Something can be entirely optional from a legal standpoint and still be essential to keeping the university running, such as heating, IT infrastructure, or specialist teaching equipment.

Jennifer Williams: Great. It looks like we’ve got time for one more question, so this one is around what’s the direct impact of poor maintenance on the student experience?

Sebastian Etchells: Given the costs to study at university, students understandably expect value for money when it comes to their learning and living environments. So poor maintenance can directly affect these environments.

For example, if there are lighting or HVAC issues, as well as safety and wellbeing. So even non-critical issues can become high impact in academic settings, especially during their exams or peak periods.

Jennifer Williams: Great. Thank you everybody for your questions. Again, if we didn’t get a chance to answer your question this time around, don’t worry, we’ll respond to you via email, and that’ll be the same email that you used to sign up to the webinar.

So everything that we’ve discussed today has a key part to play in helping to support a high-quality learning environment in universities in line with student safety and expectations. If you’d like to learn more, we have a fantastic e-guide resource available, which covers everything we’ve talked about today in more detail.

If you’re interested in downloading this resource, would like to learn more about SFG20, or would like to request a demo of Facilities-iQ and or SFG20 Mobiliser, you can simply choose your option in the poll. And again, you can choose more than one option here. Thank you very much for taking the time to join us today.

I hope to see you very soon.

Sebastian Etchells: Thanks everyone.