Nearly 8,000 incidents in half a year: this is how school maintenance is managed in Barcelona.

BarcelonaThere are up to 308 public schools in Barcelona. They are located in historic buildings, renovated blocks of flats, or even newly built properties, in almost brand-new spaces. This means that each school can have very different maintenance needs and schedules, especially considering that these are spaces where hundreds of people spend hours together every day.

On average, the Education Consortium receives 78 requests per day to resolve maintenance incidents in schools (not in high schools, as they report directly to the Department of Education). Since last January alone, 7,895 interventions have been carried out to resolve maintenance incidents in educational centers in the city, which represents a monthly average of 1,578 actions.

"If you don't do all of this with a very up-to-date and strict procedure, it's easy to end up being totally inefficient," acknowledges the Consortium's director of educational facilities, Antoni Garcia Salanova. Four years ago, they conducted a review of the main problems after receiving many complaints, especially about lack of information and loss of efficiency in maintenance. Since January 2024, management has been carried out with a new outline: there are three ways to report or detect an incident in Barcelona schools.

Traveling Brigade

The first is the detection carried out by the maintenance teams that visit all the centers twice a month. "They perform preventive maintenance, which is already standard and is periodic; it doesn't depend on anything happening," explains the equipment director. The workers on these teams are the ones who resolve the most common and easily resolved incidents, and the plan is that starting next January these visits will become weekly.

Area leaders

The second way is through the area technical representatives (RTF). "This is the person who represents us and knows about all the maintenance, furnishings, new construction, and improvement needs of all the schools in their area," explains Garcia. Since last year, there have been 10 representatives—one for each district—and each school "knows who to call directly" to report any incidents, especially the most urgent ones. These professionals also have a small financial capacity to approve expenses for minor incidents and avoid bottlenecks in matters that can be resolved immediately.

'Ticketing'

This year a third way of reporting incidents has been introduced, the Ticketing. This new tool for systematizing all information and procedures is similar to those used to track a product when purchased online, but in this case, it also "allows schools to be informed of the status of the incident." School management can select the type of need to direct the request directly to the appropriate department and avoid the delay of having to filter it manually. It also provides them with information on when pruning or power outages are being performed so that "they can see that some of the requests no longer need to be made, as they will be acted upon soon."

Prioritize Urgency

The Consortium must resolve incidents within a specific timeframe. For urgent incidents, such as a leak or a small kitchen fire, the Consortium must guarantee the presence of professionals within a maximum of one hour and must resolve the problem within 24 hours. In this regard, all schools have a specific list of what is considered urgent and what is not. If the incident is classified as ordinary, the timescales are somewhat more flexible. "At the most, we must be responding to it within 48 hours, and the resolution [on how it will be handled] must be given within seven days," explains Garcia.

In all these actions, however, there is one criterion that always applies: the schools' maintenance status must be equivalent. "Many years ago we decided that we had to work collaboratively, not competitively, because we had encountered families who registered elsewhere in order to attend a school with better facilities," the technician recalls. "Majorly improving one school unbalances the entire school system and encourages segregation," he explains.

The goal is to ensure that families have no doubts about which school to choose and opt for the one close to home because it's in the same condition as the one on the other side of the neighborhood," Garcia concludes. "If we have a 7 in maintenance, we'll have it in all the schools. We won't prioritize one having a 9 if another one is due."