How long does it take to answer one question about your estate?
In most public sector organisations, answering a single question from the board about the estate can take between one to four weeks. The delay is rarely caused by missing information but from estate data sitting across separate systems. These systems typically share no common definition of an asset which means the information has to be assembled by hand each time a question is asked.
Why does it take so long to answer a question about the estate?
Estate information in a public sector organisation is normally complete but not connected. A typical organisation holds condition data in survey reports, statutory records in a compliance register, consumption in an energy dataset, areas in a space model, and cost in a finance extract. And there’s usually at least one spreadsheet holding whatever the other systems do not.
Each of those systems was procured separately, often years apart, to solve the problem in front of the organisation at the time. None have been designed to answer a question that spans all of them. Answering an investment question therefore requires a person to extract, reconcile and reassemble information that already exists, which is why the elapsed time is measured in weeks rather than minutes.
Deloitte research into commercial real estate found that 61% of respondents said their core technology infrastructure still relied on legacy systems, and close to 60% said their organisations lacked the data, processes and internal controls needed to meet ESG compliance standards.
Public sector estate questions
The four stages of answering an estate question
Answering an estate question passes through four stages, and the Cost of Knowing Index measures each separately.
- Gathering is the time spent locating and extracting data from each source system.
- Reconciling is the time spent making those extracts comparable, which is usually the largest stage, because records that are individually accurate frequently disagree with each other.
- Assembling is the time spent building the report itself.
- Approval is the time spent in review and governance before the report reaches a board.
Most estates teams expect gathering to dominate. In practice reconciling is often larger, because it requires judgement rather than access.
The real cost of slow estate reporting
The cost of slow estate reporting is not the labour. It is the reduction in how many options an estate strategy can test.
When answering a question takes a fortnight, a board asks that question once. Any follow up questions are avoided because answering them means repeating the exercise. Over a planning cycle, an estate strategy therefore narrows to the options that were easiest to evidence rather than the options that were strongest.
McKinsey research suggests that an average employee spends 1.8 hours a day or 9.3 hours a week searching for and gathering information. In an estates function drawing on five or six separately procured systems, there is no reason to expect that figure to be lower.
How is the Index calculated?
The Cost of Knowing Index converts eight answers into an estimate of elapsed working days, using a published set of assumptions that are visible in the page source and can be audited.
Seven questions each contribute working days to one of the four stages. The eighth question does not add days. It sets what proportion of the work repeats when a board asks a follow up question that needs the same data cut a different way.
The Cost of Knowing Index makes no comparison against a sector average. No reliable published benchmark exists for time to answer an estate question, so every figure shown is derived arithmetically from the answers given.
What do the result show?
The result shows four figures.
- Elapsed working days to a first answer.
- A descriptive band, from Connected through to Reconstructed each time.
- The elapsed days for a second, follow up question.
- And that second figure as a percentage of the first.
The percentage is the most useful number. In a connected estate a follow up question costs a small fraction of the original exercise. In a fragmented estate it costs most of it again.
The result can be printed or saved as a PDF summary headed with the organisation name and date, for inclusion in a board pack.
Frequently asked questions
How accurate is the Cost of Knowing Index?
The Cost of Knowing Index produces an estimate, not a measurement. It is calculated from the answers given, using published assumptions, and is designed to be recognisable rather than precise.
Do you need to provide contact details?
No. The Cost of Knowing Index requires no contact details and runs entirely in the browser. No answers are transmitted or stored.
Who should complete the Cost of Knowing Index?
Estates directors, heads of estates, directors of estates and facilities, and finance directors with estate responsibility. Anyone who has been asked to produce evidence for a board decision about property.
How long does the diagnostic take?
Eight questions, taking about three minutes.
How does this differ from an estates data audit?
The Cost of Knowing Index positions the problem in three minutes. An estates data audit evidences it, which is what is required if the next step is asking a board to fund a change.
Can the result be shared with a board?
Yes. The result prints as a one or two page summary with the organisation name and date, showing the headline figures, the stage breakdown and the narrative.