How I Secured £1 Million In Additional Revenue Using SFG20

Learn how Leading FM expert, David Hemming CEng FICE FCMI FIWFM, secured £1 million in additional FM revenue for Leeds Beckett University using SFG20.  

Who is David Hemming CEng FICE FCMI FIWFM?

A Civil Engineer with more than 30 years working across Military, Government, Higher Education and the NHS, David Hemming has been the Director of Estates and Facilities for a number of high-profile institutions, delivering annual budgets in excess of £350 million. 

Holding Fellowships in both the Institution of Civil Engineers and the Institute of Workplace and Facilities Management, David sits on a number of national and international committees and advisory groups, dealing with standards, compliance, procurement and sustainability. 

Tackling roles as unique as Managing Director of the Parliamentary Estate, David now works as a consultant and is currently helping the NHS deliver the New Hospital Programme, among other major projects.  

How many years have you been using SFG20? 

“So, I've been using SFG20, in a hands-on manner for 10 years, some may say that I was relatively late to the party. 

Having led maintenance contracts without the use of it, I can see the errors and the issues now in hindsight, things I know happened because we didn't use it. 

Learning by mistakes I think is a vital lesson, and in this case I’d say, well, yes, finding the right tools is very important.” 

Is this a case of “I wish I had Used SFG20 years ago"? 

“Absolutely. I used to sit in meetings with an outsourced maintenance provider and we would have significant debates about whether they had achieved the right level of maintenance because we weren't using standardised schedules at the time and it made it difficult to benchmark their performance.” 

So how did you first come across SFG20?  

“I started to understand the potential of SFG20 when I was Director of Estates at Leeds Beckett University and we were coming up to the budget setting for the future years. 

I asked my team, “How do we work out how much we need to budget for next year's maintenance?” 

I got some blank looks and some people are asking, “What do you mean?” 

I said, “What's the process of looking at our data and calculating what it means for us in future years?” 

And they turned around and said, “Well, we, we just don't do that.” And when I asked why, the response was, “Well, we just get given money.” 

“Well, is that money enough?” I asked. And the answer was, “Well, no, it's not enough.”  

“Well then, how are you articulating the money that you actually need to budget for future years?” I pressed. “What is the data that you're holding and what is the process that you can say this is what planned maintenance costs? And on average, we spend this on response maintenance etc…” 

It was an 'aha' moment for them, and at that point we started investigating how we could better do it. 

Nobody had then correlated that SFG20 tasks could actually come with a cost. We then did a complete asset capture and condition survey so we could understand the state of the estate, which hadn't been done in a decade plus. 

From there we were able to build a picture and to go back to the Director of Finance and the Board and say this is actually how much this estate should cost to maintain. 

For me, it was an invaluable lesson on having the right tools and the right data.” 

How did that project at Leeds Beckett University using SFG20 go once you were able to forecast your actual cost requirements? 

“We were able to get a further million pounds of maintenance revenue for the future year. 

We were able then to look at the resource levels and work out how we could effectively and efficiently deliver those activities.” 

 
So SFG20 enabled you to make a case for that maintenance revenue requirement?  

“Yes, because SFG20 is deemed to be the definitive guide on statutory requirements, because they constantly monitor all relevant legislation.  

And obviously that is a very powerful message when you are going to talk to a Director, CFO, Executive Board about the Estates and you are able to say these are your statutory obligations. 

It's very hard for them to say then, well, we can't allocate you that money because at that point they have all the necessary information to make an informed decision and are taking on the risk of breach of legislation.”