College Infrastructure Strategy Delivery Plan Update

5. We have just completed a challenging but very productive collaboration with colleges across Scotland to produce, within a short period of time, the first ever infrastructure baseline for the entire college estate. This is already providing us with valuable insights on investment planning within colleges.
6. Colleges responded positively to Baseline 2024, supplying information to help provide the estate level and individual college investment plans and requirements for the foreseeable future.
7. Achieving this important milestone means we are now in a position to provide a
   ground-breaking Stage One IIP in early 2025.
8. Baseline 2024 identified improvement areas. It also indicated where infrastructure strategies, funding applications and more robust infrastructure investment plans are needed to provide a more accurate forward looking infrastructure investment plan.
9. On a rolling basis, subsequent revisions of the baseline will refine and improve the accuracy and integrity of the data in a consistent and reliable way.

Summary of Baseline 2024 activities leading into Stage 1

• Governance.
• Baselining estate.
• Investment themes.
• Strategic options for colleges.
• Capital funding models.
• Elements of Future Operating Models relating to the review of digital infrastructure and Net Zero.
• Adaptation of Scottish Capital Investment Manual (SCIM) for colleges.
• Preparation of Stage 1 Infrastructure Investment Plan.
• The identification of systemic issues and estate wide gaps that require policy decisions, guidance and methods for colleges to report and improve the quality of their infrastructure planning and investment pipeline.
• Internal approvals and committee process prior to publication of IIP in early 2025.

10. The potential to improve and refine capital investment planning with colleges in a more sophisticated and methodical way is huge. From the evidence already identified it is clear that, with better information and data, investment planning could be considered holistically. An estate-wide view would provide better insights and more informed decision making.
11. To fully support colleges to contribute to the Infrastructure Investment Plan, a Stage Two will be completed by the end of winter 2025. It will include any areas of work that can be further developed from Stage One.
12. Stage Two – completion by the end of winter 2025.
13. Stage Two is a logical continuation of Stage One and will build on the foundations successfully laid down there.
14. Stage Two will include:
    • Further development of Stage One.
    • Updated information from colleges.
    • Any additional updates to capital funding models that have been identified.
    • Completion of the Future Operating Models work.
    • Refinement of investment themes relating to net zero, collaboration opportunities and best practice.
    • Possible support options for colleges to further engage with the Infrastructure Investment Plan.
    • Provide benchmarks for colleges on comparable information.
    • Training for college estate teams to prepare business cases and a joined-up infrastructure investment process to improve the use and quality of assets and resources.
    • Objective evaluation criteria defined to progress and prioritise business cases.
    • The Stage 2 IIP which will encompass the outputs from all seven work packages.
15. Looking further forward, once established, the IIP will evolve into an iterative process becoming a 10-year rolling plan.
16. The Stage Two steps and updated timeline are outlined below: