From school condition assessment to a five-year plan: turning survey findings into costed priorities

By Grayling Thomas Architects · October 2026

A school condition assessment records the state of each part of your buildings and how soon each problem needs fixing. For a Condition Improvement Fund (CIF) bid, the Department for Education (DfE) says the survey "should contain specific grading and prioritisation ratings; condition grade A to D (from 'good' through to 'bad' condition) and priority rating 1 to 4 (from 'immediate action required' through to 'work required in 5+ years')". The survey on its own is a list of findings. It becomes useful when you group those findings into projects, put a cost range against each, and order them into a five-year plan that shows what you will fund, from where, and when.

This article is for the business manager or estates lead holding a survey and wondering what to do with it. It covers how to read the grades, how the DfE's own condition data relates to your survey, and a practical method for turning findings into costed priorities that can feed a CIF bid or a School Condition Allocation (SCA) spending decision.

What do condition grades and priority ratings mean?

A survey prepared for CIF uses two scales together. The condition grade describes the state of an element, such as a roof covering, a boiler or a run of windows, from A for good to D for bad. The priority rating describes urgency, from 1 for immediate action to 4 for work that can wait five years or more.

Read together, the pair tells you most of what matters. A roof graded C with priority 2 is a different conversation from a roof graded C with priority 4, even though the condition looks the same on paper. When you sort a survey, sort on both columns, not on condition alone.

For CIF the DfE sets an expectation: "We expect surveys to demonstrate D1 to C2 condition issues". In practice, findings in that band are the ones a condition bid is built around. Findings graded B, or with a long priority, still belong in your plan, but usually as planned maintenance rather than as capital projects. The CIF guidance is blunt about timing: "If the proposed works are not required to be carried out within the next two years, it is unlikely that the application will be successful." Items in later years of the plan are unlikely to be CIF bids until they become that urgent.

Both quotations come from the DfE's CIF 2027 to 2028 information for applicants, which sets out the survey rules for the current round.

Check the survey itself, too. For CIF it must be by "an independent, suitably qualified person", and "Surveys should not be older than 1 October 2023"; you must also confirm that you have considered any actual, potential or perceived conflicts of interest and declared any known ones in the application. Our guide to school condition surveyors: what the role covers in a CIF bid explains what counts as independent, and why a strong condition survey is the key to CIF funding success covers what a bid-ready survey contains.

If your surveyor used a different scale, that is not fatal. The DfE says that where surveys are not graded this way, "you should ensure the condition grading and prioritisation rating are clearly explained so the assessor can interpret the information correctly." The same applies to your governors and trustees: a plan they cannot read will not get approved.

If you have yet to commission a survey, our guide to education building surveys and what school leaders need to know explains what a survey assesses and how its grades become evidence for a bid.

CDC2 data alongside your own survey

The DfE's Condition Data Collection 2 (CDC2) programme gives the DfE a national evidence base so that capital allocations are "based on a consistent assessment across key elements of condition need", and the DfE says it can help schools "contribute to a broader view of condition need at a school", but on its own CDC2 data "is not suitable for local asset management purposes". It "does not provide descriptions of defects and remedies or cost information for schools or responsible bodies", so your own survey supplies the detail a plan needs. For CIF, "A CDC2 report can be used to support a CIF application, if it is dated within 3 years, but on its own will not be sufficient to make a full assessment of a CIF application." Use CDC2 as a second view alongside your own survey.

From findings to projects

A survey might list hundreds of lines. A five-year plan needs perhaps a dozen projects. The step in between is grouping.

Start by filtering out anything that is routine maintenance and can be handled from the revenue budget. Then group what is left by building element and by block. Twelve separate lines about failing windows across one teaching block are one project, not twelve. A boiler, its pipework and its controls are usually one project too, because it makes no sense to replace one and not the others.

For each project, write down:

• the survey lines it addresses, with their grades and ratings;

• what happens if it is not done, in plain words (a classroom closed, a heating failure, a safeguarding risk);

• whether it needs specialist evidence, such as a structural engineer's report, an M&E test or an asbestos survey;

• any dependency, such as a roof that should be done before the ceilings below it.

A worked example shows the step. Suppose a survey of a primary school lists these lines for Block B:

The first four lines become one project: re-roof Block B, with new outlets and insulation, then replace the ceilings below once the roof is watertight. It carries a cost range and sits in year one, with a CIF bid as the intended funding route if the school is CIF-eligible: the worst finding is D1, and the work cannot wait two years. Our article on CIF funding for roof replacement covers the evidence a roof bid like this needs. The insulation line has a long priority rating, so it belongs in the bid only because the roof is being replaced anyway, and the bid has to say so: the guidance scores a bid higher where "Any non-essential items included are fully justified as part of the project." The windows become a second, smaller project in year four or five, funded from the school's own capital or a later allocation. It can be tempting to add them to the roof bid while the scaffold is up, but the DfE says you will score high marks if "You only include works of the highest need", so price them as a separate option rather than as part of the CIF scope. Five survey lines, two projects, two years, two funding routes: that is the whole method in miniature.

How do you put costs against each priority?

Survey costs, where a survey gives them, are usually budget figures, and CDC2 gives none. At this stage, give each project a cost range and firm it up as the project nears funding.

There are three sources of cost, in rising order of certainty: a professional estimate based on the scope, a cost plan prepared by a quantity surveyor, and formal quotes or tenders. The CIF guidance puts it simply: "The more certain your cost, the lower the financial risk to the project". For a five-year plan, early years need firmer figures than later ones.

Whatever the source, each cost should include fees, contingency and any temporary accommodation or decanting the work needs. Underestimating is the common mistake. The DfE warns that "Underestimating costs puts you at a greater risk of going over budget and additional funding will not be provided after project approval." A plan built on optimistic numbers will come back to the governing body more than once.

For each significant project, set out more than one way to fix the problem. Repair, partial replacement and full replacement have very different costs and lives. That comparison is what every 2027 to 2028 bid must now include: "All applications must include a bespoke, costed options appraisal that is unique to your project." See the CIF costed options appraisal.

Building the five-year plan

With projects, priorities and cost ranges in hand, the plan itself is a matter of ordering and matching each project to a funding route.

A simple layout works well: one row per project, with columns for the block, the element, the grade and rating, the cost range, the proposed year and the expected funding route. The first year should hold the urgent work you can already fund or are bidding for. Later years hold work that is needed but less urgent, and the plan should say plainly which items depend on a bid succeeding.

The same plan supports the asset management plan the estate standards ask for; see our guide to what the School Estate Management Standards annual return will ask trusts to show.

Review it every year. Grades change as buildings age, a mild winter or a hard one changes priorities, and new survey evidence will move projects up or down. Where the plan points to bigger changes across a site, such as replacing a block rather than repairing it, school and estate masterplanning helps set the order of work over a longer period. A plan that is kept up to date is the kind of evidence that helps when the DfE asks how a project fits your estate strategy and asset management plan.

Where a trust runs several schools, our guide to estate masterplanning for a multi-academy trust shows how each school's plan feeds a single estate plan.

Feeding the plan into CIF or SCA

Which route applies depends on the size and type of your responsible body. The DfE's school capital funding guidance says "Local authorities, larger MATs and larger VA school bodies receive direct SCA to invest in priorities across the schools for which they are responsible." For this round, eligible applicants instead include a "Stand-alone academy", a school in a MAT "with fewer than five schools or fewer than 3,000 pupils", smaller VA bodies, sixth-form colleges and a "School with a signed academy order as of 1 September 2026 that the department expects will convert to a CIF-eligible responsible body by 1 April 2027", with the other categories judged at the start of September 2026. If your school is maintained by the local authority (other than a voluntary aided school), the authority receives the SCA and your plan feeds its spending decisions; these schools are generally not eligible to bid into CIF. The practice's guide to CIF, SCA and urgent capital support sets out which applies to you.

For an SCA body, the five-year plan is the spending decision: it shows trustees why one school's roof comes before another school's windows. The same guidance expects responsible bodies "to manage their school estate strategically", and points to Good estate management for schools (GEMS) for developing an estates strategy and asset management plan.

For a CIF school, the plan does two jobs. It picks the one or two projects worth bidding for this round, and it supplies evidence the assessors score. The CIF guidance says you "will be required to confirm that you have reviewed this guidance and that your condition project is consistent with your estate strategy and asset management plan." It adds: "Your score will be enhanced where you can provide relevant evidence from your self-assessment, asset management plan and estate strategy". That evidence is scored under project need, in the sub-criterion "Evidence of GEMS process and strategy". Separately, project planning accounts for 20 points from a total of 100 and covers "appropriateness of solution (demonstrated through a bespoke, detailed, costed options appraisal), timescales and delivery plan". To score maximum marks for appropriateness of solution, "the highest need should be prioritised and a bespoke, detailed, costed options appraisal with quantified benefits that supports the solution provided." A prioritised plan helps you choose that highest-need project; the bid still needs its own costed options appraisal.

The CIF 2027-28 round opened on 21 October 2026, and the deadline for applications with all supporting documents is 12 noon, 15 December 2026. New applicants must register for a CIF portal account by an earlier deadline: 12 noon, 30 November 2026. The practice's CIF 2027 to 2028 key dates article sets out the full timetable. If a project in the first year of your plan fits the fund, the plan is where the bid starts. The DfE has said it plans to replace CIF, describing it as "introducing a new programme by autumn 2028 to replace CIF", and the details are not yet known, so later years of the plan should not assume a CIF round. Our article on the end of CIF explains what is known so far.

Related guides

• School condition surveyors: what the role covers in a CIF bid and how to choose one

• Condition surveys for special schools: what is different

• School Condition Allocation (SCA): how academy trusts should prioritise the money

Turning condition surveys into five-year plans with Grayling Thomas Architects

We are a RIBA Chartered Practice that designs and delivers large school and SEN buildings. Grayling Thomas Architects was CIF bid writer, lead consultant and architect for Dorothy Goodman School in Hinckley, a new building for an existing special school, funded through the Condition Improvement Fund.

Our education surveys include condition surveys for schools and academies, and our guide to choosing an architect for a school capital project covers what to check before you appoint one.

As lead consultant and architect, we work with the school to prepare the evidence, the design and the costed options that turn survey findings into a plan, and a plan into projects. To talk about your estate, contact Grayling Thomas Architects.