Facilities Management

Facilities Management teams can include various functions and this is not consistent across the sector. In this resource we are mainly concerned with the Estates provision, maintenance and use, including buildings and grounds both on campus and single off-campus sites such as museums, shop and office premises used by institutions, conference facilities etc.

Some activities usefully bring students into contact with local communities, promoting both the institution and its work and the students themselves, in activities such as hairdressing salons, massage and beauty treatments, theatre and musical events, exhibitions and festivals.

Suitability of the Environment

One of the potential barriers to bringing mature people from either the business sector or the wider communities onto a campus can be their perception of young people, their behaviour and the environment they will be entering. Perhaps this is an issue for Further Education even more so than universities, where students are themselves more mature, but studies have shown that today's mature generations are less tolerant, less trusting and even more afraid of teenagers and youths than ever before e.g. Bernardo's poll in 2008 - 'Research conducted by YouGov shows that the public holds a negative view of all children, despite the vast majority of children making positive contributions to their communities, attending school, taking part in activities and a significant number volunteering.'

Refectories and food outlets are main areas of concern. College refectories can be noisy places and the food that teenagers prefer is not necessarily the menu of choice for mature people. In the past some colleges have experimented with separate student and staff refectories, then the staff refectories were opened to more mature students and that could include opening them to young children from college crèche facilities whose parents were students. Some institutions have introduced high standard food outlets and restaurants which tend to provide a quieter more peaceful environment, but at a cost.

Many CPD and meeting areas are furnished to high standards and catering areas included with comfortable seating. Alternatively, arrangements are made to bring catering into the meeting room. Some multiple site institutions have nominated a smaller campus or single building site for use by business units where professional CPD courses can be run and meetings for business or knowledge exchange can be held in a more conducive environment.

The environment on offer and particularly the first impressions of it, remain an issue when Business and Community Engagement activities are being planned.

Generally within the Higher Education sector (although not exclusive to it), Science Parks, Innovation Centres and Business Incubation Units can provide the means to interact with new businesses, with high technology industries and provide premises within which to set up spin-out companies from research activities. Such centres can be on separate premises altogether or set up on quieter parts of large campuses where younger students, whilst not necessarily excluded, do not have reason to frequent.

Such areas can often be funded via partnerships with Regional Development Agencies, Local Authorities, Business Agencies and other funding partners. Tenancies can be wholly controlled by the institution or subject to constraints under the terms of start-up agreements. Quite often companies in such premises can contract with the institution which provides further services such as HR, IT and other administration and support services.

Business & Communication Engagement Opportunities for Estates

At the University of Glamorgan the Embedding BCE project was told of a garden project where a plot of land had been set aside for use by local schools. The Facilities Management Team provided basic services, piped water etc. and liaison with the schools using the facility.

Hire of premises is another common way of interacting with wider communities for meetings, sport, local societies and larger scale conferences.

Large institutions can often be pioneers in the use of new sustainable technologies and there is a potential untapped resource of knowledge within Facilities Management teams that could be utilised to bring knowledge of these technologies and their implications to a wider audience.