Background
For many years HEFCE and the National Audit Office (NAO) have pressed the Higher Education (HE) sector to manage academic space more effectively and to plan for new provision more scientifically. Some of the key documents are:
- 1987 University Grants commission (UGC) "Notes on Control and Guidance" for University Building Projects which provided rules for calculating floor areas based on student numbers in different academic disciplines
- 1996 National Audit Office (NAO) report on "Space Management in Higher Education: A Good Practice Guide"
- 2002 Newcastle University Space Management Project
- 2005-2006 the UK Higher Education Space Management Group(SMG) commissioned a series of reports that can be found at www.smg.ac.uk
In the policy document "Carbon reduction target and strategy for Higher Education in England" HEFCE makes a clear commitment to maintain focus on space management through the Capital Investment Framework and to communicate the link between efficient use of space and environmental sustainability.
SUMS Consulting anticipated that at some point best practice would be established and the requests for timetabling reviews would die away. This has not happened and instead the debate has widened to space management more generally. This SUMS Guide summarises the lessons learnt from SUMS reviews and workshops. It gives an overview of the issues relating to space management in general before fccusing on teaching space management and is intended for:
- Space, facilities or registry managers
- New timetablers
- Existing timetablers who are seeking to develop their skills.
As a result of reading this Guide, staff should be able to identify good practice and areas for improvement within their own Institution.