Estates news

The Estates Department provides a number of essential services to the University of Kent and is responsible for managing, maintaining and developing the infrastructure and building fabric of our Canterbury and Medway campuses.

Following continued feedback from our customers and in order to maintain an acceptable level of service, the Estates Department Service Level Statement (SLS) has recently been updated. The most recent version (September 2016) can be found here. 

In this SLS we explain what we do and what our customers, can expect from us and more importantly, what we do not do. The SLS is based on and constrained by existing resource within the Estates Department: the targets are set to be achievable.  The sections on customer obligation have been introduced to assist us in improving all of our services across the University.

Peter Czarnomski
Director of Estates

I am pleased to announce that Helen Ellis, currently Head of Facilities Management Operations, has been appointed to the new post of Deputy Director of Estates (Campus Services) with effect from Monday 14 November 2016.

Helen’s initial task will be to bring together the existing Maintenance, Facilities Management, Environmental and Sustainability Management and Central Administrative teams into a new Campus Services team.  The aim of the new service will be to deliver a range of high quality, cost effective, streamlined services to our customers, which enhance the student experience and deliver value for money in a financially challenging environment.

Those of you who have worked closely with Helen will be aware of her background in Estates and Facilities Management.  For others I thought it would be useful to give you a brief synopsis of Helen’s experience in the Higher Education and commercial services sectors.

Helen has twenty years of experience in the delivery of estates and facilities management.  Prior to joining Kent, she held the post of Associate Director of Corporate Services (Head of Facilities) at the University of East London, where she was responsible for all hard and soft FM services including: building maintenance, environmental and sustainability management, building projects, campus services, customer services, residences, catering, space management and timetabling.   Her previous roles include Head of Estates at the London Business School and Head of Campus Services at the University of Greenwich, both of which included responsibility for hard and soft FM services.  Helen has also worked for a commercial company who designed and developed high quality, affordable student accommodation for the higher education sector and provided operational Estates and FM support services to universities across the UK.   She has an MSc in Facilities Management and is a Certified Member of the British Institute of Facilities Management. The first ten years of Helen’s career was spent working in Human Resources Management and she remains a Chartered Member of the Institute of Personnel and Development.

Once Helen Ellis is in post she will be sending out regular communications to staff regarding the new Campus Services team.  In the meantime, if you do have any immediate queries please raise these with your line manager who will feed them up to the appropriate member of the Senior Management Team for clarification and response.

Whilst writing I would also like to take this opportunity to advise you that Nick Swinford, Assistant Director: Estates (Infrastructure & Sustainability) will be retiring from the University on the 2 December 2016, after 25 years’ service. I am sure you will all join me in wishing Nick every success for the future and in thanking him for his considerable contribution to the Estates team.

Peter Czarnomski
Director of Estates

The Estates Department charity for 2016 is Winston’s Wish, a charity for bereaved children, nominated by Gill Brealey. Thank you to everyone else who nominated charities earlier this year.

Winston’s Wish was set up in 1992 to meet the needs of bereaved children, young people and their families. Since then, they have helped many thousands of children begin to live with their loss.

The idea took root when clinical psychologist, Julie Stokes, visited the USA and Canada on a Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship. Inspired by the services she saw there, she returned to the UK and set up Winston’s Wish.

You can find out more about Winston’s Wish by clicking on this link http://www.winstonswish.org.uk/