Facilities management report: what to include, and what makes it believable

01

What a facilities management report is for, and the duties behind it

The report may come from an in-house FM team, an FM contractor or a managing agent, and it goes to an estates director, a landlord, a facilities committee or the directors of an owners' management company (OMC). For many clients it is the main regular account they get of a building they do not see day to day.

No Irish law sets the format; the contract does. The law sets the duties the report accounts for, and those belong to the client or the person in control of the building, whoever does the work.

The first is the employer's. Section 8(2)(c) of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 requires an employer to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, "the design, provision and maintenance" of the place of work "in a condition that is safe and without risk to health", the same for safe means of access and egress, and the same for plant and machinery. Section 8(2)(e) adds systems of work that are "planned, organised, performed, maintained and revised as appropriate".

The second reaches beyond employers. Section 15 of the 2005 Act applies to a person who has control to any extent of a non-domestic place of work made available to people other than their own employees, and subsection (2) brings in anyone who, by contract, tenancy, licence or other interest, has an obligation to maintain or repair it, "to the extent of his or her obligation". A landlord, an OMC and an FM contractor can all be caught.

The third is fire. Section 18(2) of the Fire Services Act 1981, as substituted by section 29 of the Licensing of Indoor Events Act 2003, makes it the duty of every person having control over premises to which the section applies to take all reasonable measures to guard against the outbreak of fire, to provide reasonable fire safety measures and procedures, and to "ensure that the fire safety measures and procedures ... are applied at all times". The 2003 amendment added "any workplace" to the premises covered. The report is where the person having control learns whether those duties are being met, which is why its compliance section matters most.

02

What to include

A useful facilities management report covers the same headings every period, so that changes stand out:

• Summary: one page, in plain words, of what went well, what did not, and what the client or board needs to decide or know.
• Health and safety: accidents, near misses and incidents, whether any was reportable to the Health and Safety Authority, and what was done about each.
• Fire safety: the state of the fire safety register, the routine checks, servicing by competent persons, faults and false alarms, drills, and any advice, warning or notice from the fire authority.
• Statutory inspections: lift thorough examinations, electrical inspection and testing, gas, water hygiene and any other examination the building's plant requires, each with its last date, result and next date.
• Planned preventative maintenance (PPM): tasks scheduled, completed and missed, with the reason for each miss, across mechanical and electrical plant, heating and ventilation, and the building fabric.
• Reactive maintenance: faults logged, by priority and location, completed within the agreed response and completion times, and still open, oldest first.
• Soft services: cleaning, security, waste, pest control, grounds and reception, against the contract's own measures.
• Finance: spend against budget, work outside the fixed price, and quotations awaiting approval; for an OMC, spend against the service charge budget and any call on the sinking fund.
• Risks and recommendations: failing plant, repeat faults and assets near the end of their life, the critical ones first.
• Actions: what was agreed last time, who owns it, and whether it is done.

Keep what the contract asks for and cut the rest.

03

Reporting compliance: the fire safety register and the statutory checks

"Fire safety: compliant" tells the reader nothing. A good compliance section is a table, one row per duty and building: the check and its frequency, when it was last done, by whom and with what result, when it is next due, open defects, and where the certificate is kept. An overdue item should be obvious at a glance, not folded into a percentage.

Fire is the heaviest part of it. The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage's Fire Safety Guide for Building Owners and Operators (August 2023), written for persons having control under section 18(2), says a fire safety register should be maintained for all premises where section 18 applies, kept on the premises, up to date and available to an authorised officer of the fire authority, and that it should be "a living document" with daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual records. Its section 8 sets out recommended routine maintenance schedules and notes that many of the daily, weekly and monthly activities can be carried out without expert knowledge, while the quarterly, six-monthly and yearly work should be done by people competent in that area who can certify it to the relevant standard. The report summarises the register; the register stays at the building.

The Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (General Application) Regulations 2007 (S.I. No. 299 of 2007; the link is to the text as made, since amended, including by S.I. No. 732 of 2007) supply several more rows. Regulation 13 requires fire detection and fire-fighting equipment to be "inspected and maintained as frequently as necessary" and "serviced by a competent person as frequently as necessary". Regulation 12 requires emergency routes to emergency exits, and the exits themselves, to be "kept clear at all times". Under regulation 52 and Part B of Schedule 1, a hoist or lift must be thoroughly examined by a competent person at least every six months, and regulation 54 requires a register of lifting equipment with the date of the last thorough examination. Regulation 89, as amended by S.I. No. 732 of 2007, requires a new electrical installation, or a major alteration or extension, to be inspected and tested by a competent person on completion, and an existing installation to be tested by a competent person "from time to time where required having regard to the nature, location and use of the installation", or when an inspector requires it, each time with a report; defects found must be "rectified promptly".

Water hygiene belongs in the table too. The Health Protection Surveillance Centre publishes the National Guidelines for the Control of Legionellosis in Ireland, 2009, and the report should show the water risk assessment's date and whether its routine monitoring was done (see the legionella checks guide).

Incidents have their own rule. The Health and Safety Authority's accident and dangerous occurrence reporting page explains that an injury to an employee from an accident at work must be reported where the employee cannot carry out their normal work for more than three consecutive days, excluding the day of the accident, and that non-fatal accidents and dangerous occurrences should be reported within ten working days. The report should say which incidents were reported, by whom and when, not only how many happened.

04

Reporting to an owners' management company

Apartment developments are reported on differently, because the client is a company of the owners. The OMC's directors are usually volunteers who own units, and the day-to-day work is done by a managing agent licensed by the Property Services Regulatory Authority, which publishes a standard Property Services Agreement for management services in a multi-unit development. The agreement sets the services and, in practice, how often the agent reports to the board. The owners' management company guide covers the roles in more detail.

The law shapes what those reports need to feed. Section 17 of the Multi-Unit Developments Act 2011 requires an OMC to give each member an annual report at least 10 days before a meeting held at least once a year. Among other things, that report must include a statement of income and expenditure, the sinking fund balance and contributions, the service charge and its basis, any planned non-recurring spending on refurbishment, improvement or maintenance, the insurance, and "a statement setting out, in general terms, the fire safety equipment installed in the development and the arrangements in place for the maintenance of such equipment".

Section 18 requires the annual service charge estimate to be broken down into categories that include insurance, general maintenance, repairs, waste management, cleaning, gardening and landscaping, and concierge and security services. Section 19 requires a sinking fund for refurbishment, improvement and non-recurring maintenance.

An agent's report to the board is easier to use, and the annual report easier to write, if it follows those headings:

• Common areas: cleaning, security, grounds and waste, reported against what the service charge pays for, with complaints from residents and what was done about them.
• Fire safety: the register's routine checks and servicing, faults and their repair, and anything residents do that endangers escape routes, such as bicycles or rubbish in stair cores.
• Repairs and maintenance: recurring work paid from the service charge, kept apart from non-recurring work that may be a call on the sinking fund and needs the board's approval.
• Spend: against the service charge budget, by the categories in section 18.
• Decisions needed: quotations, contract renewals and anything the board must approve before the next meeting.

Keep the OMC and the agent distinct: the OMC holds the duties and makes the decisions; the agent carries out the work and reports.

05

KPIs, the evidence behind them, and the review meeting

Key performance indicators work best when there are few of them, each measures something the client cares about, and each can be checked. Common ones are statutory inspections and PPM completed on time, reactive faults fixed within the agreed times, repeat faults, cleaning and security audit results, and complaints.

A KPI is only as good as the record behind it. If "all fire exits checked daily" comes from a sheet signed a week at a time, or "all patrols completed" from a book nobody reads, the client is reading the provider's assurance, not evidence. Before a figure goes into the report, whoever writes it should know where it came from and be able to produce the underlying record if the client, an HSA inspector or a fire authority officer asks. The same records support the safety statement, which section 20 of the 2005 Act requires to be reviewed when there is a significant change or reason to believe it is no longer valid.

Good reports share a few habits:

1. Lead with exceptions. What is overdue, failed, at risk or needs a decision goes on the first page.
2. Use the same structure every period, so the reader knows where to look and can compare.
3. Report by building where there are several, because an average across a portfolio hides the one that is struggling.
4. Explain every miss. A missed check with a reason and a new date is credible; a missed check with no comment invites the question.
5. Keep the actions list live, each action with an owner and a date.

The review meeting should work through the exceptions and the actions rather than read the report aloud. What the report says and what the building shows should match; when they do not, the report is the thing to fix.

06

Where the record fails, and what SiteClara does about it

The report is usually assembled at the end of the period from whatever records exist: a CAFM system for maintenance, contractors' certificates for inspections, and for cleaning, security and caretaking, paper sheets, patrol books and the supervisor's memory. Those last records are the weakest, and they cover the services occupants and residents notice most. The daily fire exit check is ticked on Monday for the whole week; the wedged fire door seen on Tuesday night was mentioned to whoever was passing. A month of that arrives in the report as a single line: "no issues".

SiteClara does not write the facilities management report. It produces a record each day that the report can draw on. A printed QR poster, with an NFC tag behind it if staff prefer to tap, goes at each location that has a check: a fire exit, a stair core, the plant room, a washroom, the bin store. Cleaning, security and caretaking staff scan or tap with their own phone, with no app to install, see the checks due there, and mark each one done or explain what stopped them, with a photo when one is asked for. The named person and the time are recorded as it happens. A fault found on a round is reported at that location and stays on the team's list of jobs until someone closes it.

The supervisor sees what was due, done and missed, records the reason a check was missed, and can escalate a job to the building manager, who answers with what happens next. Each day the supervisor reviews the checks and photos and approves a daily report that goes to nominated management or client contacts at 08:00 the next morning, showing what was reported, what was completed, what is still open and how the scheduled checks went. Whoever writes the monthly report, or the managing agent's report to an OMC board, has a period of approved daily reports to work from rather than a period of memory.

07

Questions people ask

What are examples of management reports?

In an Irish apartment development one is set by law. Section 17 of the Multi-Unit Developments Act 2011 requires an owners' management company to give each member an annual report at least 10 days before its annual meeting, with a statement of income and expenditure, the sinking fund, the service charge, planned non-recurring maintenance, the insurance and, in general terms, the fire safety equipment installed and the arrangements for maintaining it. A managing agent's monthly or quarterly report to the board is another, but its content is set by the agreement, not the Act.

What are the different types of facility management reports?

The periodic report to the client is set by the contract, but several of the reports it summarises are required by law. Under the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (General Application) Regulations 2007, a report of each thorough examination of a lift must be kept at the place of work, with a register of lifting equipment showing the date of the last examination (regulation 54), and an electrical installation must be tested by a competent person, with a report of the test: a new one on completion and an existing one from time to time where required, or when an inspector requires it (regulation 89, as amended by S.I. No. 732 of 2007). The Health and Safety Authority's accident and dangerous occurrence reporting page adds the incident report: an injury that keeps an employee from their normal work for more than three consecutive days, excluding the day of the accident, must be reported to the Authority.

08

Further reading, and a list to take away

The 2005 Act, the 2007 Regulations, the Fire Services Acts and the Multi-Unit Developments Act 2011 are on the Irish Statute Book. The Department of Housing's Fire Safety Guide for Building Owners and Operators is the best guide to the fire section, and its section 8 schedules make a sound starting table. I.S. EN ISO 41001:2018, Facility management – Management systems – Requirements with guidance for use, is available from the National Standards Authority of Ireland for organisations that run their FM to a management system standard.

Before the next facilities management report goes out, check that:

• the first page shows what is overdue, failed, at risk or needs a decision;
• compliance is a table by duty and building, with last date, result, next date and open defects;
• the fire section summarises the register and the register itself is on the premises and current;
• lift examinations, electrical testing and water hygiene each have their own row;
• every incident shows whether it was reportable to the HSA and whether it was reported;
• for an OMC, the headings follow the service charge categories and the annual report's contents, with sinking fund items kept apart;
• every KPI has a named source record that could be shown if asked;
• cleaning, security and caretaking figures come from records made at the time, not end-of-week sheets;
• every missed check has a reason and a new date, and the actions list has owners and dates.