Contents 1Introduction to the project 4

1.44Summary

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  The EMS figures (IPD & GVA Grimley, 2001) suggest that HEIs achieving good frequency rates also tend to achieve high occupancy either because their core teaching space is well managed, or because space shortages force efficient use.
  

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  There are three main reasons for undertaking space utilisation surveys:
  

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  to identify unused bookings and free space, especially at times or in locations that are under pressure.
  

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  to monitor space use and inform decisions about providing more, withdrawing space from use, changing its function and so on.
  

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  to educate users about space use
  

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  Utilisation surveys are carried out at four of the six HEIs visited and planned at a fifth. The other devolves almost all space to departments and considers that there is no role for centrally organised utilisation surveys.
  

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  Surveys of pooled teaching space are usually developed first, and some HEIs later survey departmentally controlled teaching rooms and finally offices and specialist space such as teaching laboratories.
  

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  Space managers believe making space use transparent encourages greater efficiency.
  

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  Survey data is reported annually to the HEI’s Space Management Committee, or whichever group takes responsibility for space, but management often subsequently fails to take measures to improve utilisation rates.
  

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  Surveys of pooled teaching space are most common and are usually carried out in November and February. Spot checks early in each semester, on the most heavily used slots, can effectively release space at peak times.
  

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  Students, maintenance staff or cleaning staff carry out the surveys, using pre-planned routes. They record:
  

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  rooms booked but not used
  
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  percentage occupancy, either headcount or in 25% bands
  
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  frequency of room usage
  

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  Different utilisation targets may be adopted for morning, afternoon and evening periods.
  

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  Analysis of student registrations, frequency and occupancy can reveal whether bookings reflect actual class sizes and the level of student attendance.
  

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  Low student attendance, rather than overbooking, is the main contributor to low utilisation rates. It is impossible to attain 50% utilisation when student attendance is at or below 50%, which is the norm for many HEIs. Comparison of bookings with registered class sizes is therefore more useful than occupancy rates.
  

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  The utilisation rate is calculated for each hour, across the whole week, and for each day. Analysis of these figures for different room sizes, types and locations can reveal where there is overprovision.
  

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  In one HEI, where a single department has virtually total control of space booking, its practice was less disciplined than for pooled space.
  

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  At Newcastle, real time utilisation surveys were carried out for teaching rooms and specialist rooms, and desktop surveys of offices and research space, as part of a fundamental review of accommodation. They revealed opportunities for increasing efficiency of space use.
  

9Space ‘charging’ or cost attribution

One quarter of the 143 HEIs which told the EMS project about space charging operated such a system in 1999-2000 (IPD & GVA Grimley, 2001). Cost attribution, meaning that the operating costs of each individual building are charged to the occupying department, school or faculty is not practised in the collaborating HEIs. The nearest to this is at University F, where a department occupying an individual building pays its energy charge, ascertained by metering. The idea is generally rejected as unfair since departments cannot opt to locate outside the university estate, or into a more efficient building.
Five of the six collaborating HEIs use space charging, with one operating it for the first time this year. There are significant differences in the level of charge, the space to which it applies and the complexity of the systems used. In all but one case the charge is a facilities charge, relating mainly to the revenue cost of running the estate. Costs of borrowing and depreciation, which Griffith (1999) likened to ‘rent’ are included at only one institution. Price and Matzdorf (1999) point out that “there is no evidence of any one model of space charging producing superior outcomes. There is not even any proof that space charging per se automatically promotes in practice a greater drive for efficient or effective usage.”

1.45Attributing space usage to cost centres

The academic cost centres, on which space charges are levied, are usually schools/departments or faculties, although at University C some centres are units at lower than departmental level. The charges are paid out of their income, which broadly derives from their student numbers, research and consultancy. Since central administrative departments do not have income from these sources, they do not bear space charges and the cost of the space they occupy is distributed between the academic cost centres. Distribution is by means of a floorspace driver, usually usable floorspace, including or excluding a share of centrally pooled teaching space. Because academic departments are charged according to the floorspace they occupy, there is an incentive for them to use space efficiently. However, since administrative departments have no such discipline, only the academic departments suffer if they are inefficient space users. In only one of the collaborating universities is the share of the space charge relating to each administrative department’s occupation transparent to those paying for it. In all the others it is hidden in the overall charge, so that whereas academic departments are put under the pressure of transparency, administrative departments are not. It would appear that such systems fail to drive efficiency in administrative departments. Table shows that over the sector as a whole, administrative staff office occupation is less efficient than that of academic staff.

Directory: estates
estates -> Dear friends and neighbours
estates -> King’s College Estates Records
estates -> Catalogue compiled by Jude Brimmer from a card catalogue by Michael Stansfield at the King’s College Archive Centre, Cambridge, as part of the ‘Promotion of Public Access to the King’s College Estates Records’ project supported by the Heritage Lottery
estates -> Fuel Card No Fuel Type Diesel/Petrol/Electric/Other Mileage

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