Impact of Smart Facilities Management System on School Staff in Facilities Management and Potential Re-employment Support

Mr Darryl David asked the Minister for Education (a) whether the upcoming Smart Facilities Management (SFM) system for all mainstream and special education schools will result in any redundancies for staff in facilities management roles; and (b) if so, what plans are in place to help these staff with re-employment opportunities.

The implementation of Smart Facilities Management (FM) in our schools is intended to support facilities management officers (FMO) in their daily operational works, rather than replace them.

Smart FM enables the FMO to centrally monitor critical infrastructure and utility consumption real-time, without manual inspections and physical collation of utility reports. This will allow for more timely and data driven decisions to be taken. For example, through data analysis, the FMO can determine whether an equipment is due for servicing. It also reduces the volume of physically demanding and repetitive manual tasks and serves to benefit our ageing workforce.

Change management is part and parcel of the Smart FM transition. We will be onboarding the FMO onto the new system and will provide training to upskill and reskill them.

Smart FM will enhance the overall building performance through predictive maintenance and energy optimisation. In doing so, we will improve the experience of students and teachers in the school environment.