Universities
Dave Coward Management provides professional advisory and consultancy services to Universities.
Senior Estates Managers face a range of challenges; these include:
- increased scrutiny, internal and external
- the need to demonstrate efficiency, effectiveness and value for money
- increasingly competitive university environment
- increased customer demands and expectations
- continuing demand to achieve better results with fewer resources
- increasing need to demonstrate the effectiveness of in house services compared to other providers
- pay & conditions modernisation / harmonisation
- minimising risk on the predictability of cost outcomes
- the need to continuously improve and to develop new and innovative approaches
"All support services, whether internally or externally provided, ought to be subject to review;
there should be procedures to test the market, benchmark services and to maximise
the use of limited resources"
How Can We Help? By...
- providing independent, objective analysis
- identifying opportunities for improvement
- developing practical, sustainable solutions
- working with and supporting managers to implement change
- applying the principles of Best Value - Challenge, Compare, Consult, Compete
- market testing, benchmarking and tendering
"To ensure that appropriate standards are operating across the institution and that
existing support service benefits are maintained, institutions may
wish to undertake periodic reviews"
Benefits
- Improved efficiency, effectiveness and productivity
- A detailed, objective and challenging evaluation of managerial and operational performance
- Identified opportunities for improvement and change
- Reduced costs
- Cost effective service procurement
- Improved staffing and organisational arrangements, working methods, systems and procedures
- A developed performance culture, supported by key objectives, targets and performance indicators
- Customer focused services
- Effective deployment of staff and other resources
- Identified training and development needs
Reviews cover a wide range of Estates and Facilities' operations including:
- Estates Maintenance
- Grounds and Gardens Maintenance
- Facilities Services, including:
- Porters
- Cleaning
- Mail Services
- Caretaking
- Security
- Catering
- Printing and Reprographics
- Procurement
- Helpdesk Operations
- Administrative, Clerical & Secretarial Support
- Stores
- Waste Management
At a strategic level, we provide advice and support in a number of areas:
- Interim Management
- Procurement, including market testing and tendering, drafting specifications and contract documents, developing evaluation procedures
- Best Value reviews and performance plans
- Service level agreements / statements
- Strategic and service planning
- Change management
- Resource planning
- Performance management, measurement and monitoring
- Organisational structures
- Benchmarking and market testing
- Job evaluation and pay structures
- Systems development
- Recruitment
- Efficiency / value for money audits