From heatwave response to climate resilience: Why intelligent facilities management must become a priority for local government

When temperatures climbed towards record highs during the recent UK heatwave, local authorities found themselves managing far more than uncomfortable buildings. Schools closed or moved to remote learning, transport operators introduced service restrictions and public services faced mounting pressure as infrastructure struggled to cope with conditions that would once have been considered exceptional.

The disruption provided a timely reminder that climate resilience is no longer a future planning exercise. It is an operational challenge unfolding in real time. For local government, the conversation around extreme weather often focuses on emergency response, sustainability targets and long-term adaptation strategies. Yet there is another, often overlooked, opportunity: improving how public buildings are managed day-to-day.

Schools, council offices, leisure centres, libraries, community hubs and transport facilities all play a critical role in delivering local services and each depends on effective facilities management (FM) to remain safe, operational and cost-efficient.

As periods of extreme heat become more frequent, intelligent FM solutions are fast becoming an important tool for helping local authorities balance service continuity, occupant wellbeing, energy consumption and budget pressures.

The new reality for public sector buildings

Many public-sector buildings were designed for a different climate. Cooling infrastructure is often limited, ageing building stock can struggle with temperature regulation and facilities teams are increasingly expected to do more with constrained resources.

The recent heatwave highlighted these challenges. Hundreds of schools across England and Wales were forced to close, shorten the school day, or implement alternative learning arrangements due to excessive indoor temperatures. Meanwhile, rail operators introduced speed restrictions and warned passengers of disruption as infrastructure came under strain.

While local government cannot control the weather, they can improve their ability to respond and this is where facilities management moves from being a supporting function to a strategic enabler for local authorities.

Why data matters more than ever

Historically, facilities teams have relied on experience, routine schedules and manual inspections to manage building performance. While these approaches remain valuable, extreme weather events demand greater visibility and faster decision-making.

An intelligent FM approach – such as IoT – combines operational data from multiple sources, including occupancy levels, room bookings, maintenance records, energy consumption, temperature readings and asset performance. Taken together, this information creates a real-time picture of how buildings are functioning and where intervention may be needed.

For example, during periods of extreme heat, facilities teams can identify which areas are experiencing the highest occupancy, which spaces are overheating and which systems are consuming excessive energy. Rather than applying blanket measures across an entire estate, teams can make targeted adjustments where they will have the greatest impact.

This is particularly important for local authorities managing diverse property portfolios. A community library, a civic office and a secondary school each have different occupancy patterns and comfort requirements. Intelligent FM enables a more nuanced response that supports both efficiency and occupant wellbeing.

Balancing comfort and cost

The challenge facing many councils is clear: maintain comfortable, safe environments while managing rising operational costs.

Cooling is one of the largest controllable energy loads within many buildings. During heatwaves, the temptation can be to maximise cooling outputs across an entire estate. However, this approach may lead to unnecessary expenditure and place additional strain on already stretched systems. A smarter approach would link cooling strategies to actual demand.

Occupancy data, historical trends, room usage patterns and predictive analytics can help facilities teams optimise cooling schedules, reduce unnecessary runtime and prioritise critical spaces. Meeting rooms, customer service centres and classrooms can be maintained at comfortable temperatures while less frequently used areas operate more efficiently.

This not only supports energy reduction goals but can also extend equipment life and reduce reactive maintenance requirements. For local authorities facing continued budget pressures, even modest gains across multiple sites can translate into meaningful savings.

Supporting business continuity during extreme weather

The recent heatwave highlighted how building performance directly affects service delivery. When classrooms become too hot to use, education is disrupted. When transport hubs experience operational issues, communities feel the impact immediately. When staff are unable to work comfortably and safely, productivity suffers.

Investment in intelligent FM solutions and smart building technologies can help reduce these risks by providing early warning indicators before issues become critical. For example, facilities teams can receive alerts when temperatures exceed predefined thresholds, identify underperforming HVAC assets, monitor building conditions remotely, and prioritise maintenance activities based on operational risk. This allows organisations to move from reactive intervention to proactive management.

For local authorities overseeing hundreds of facilities across large geographic areas, this visibility becomes increasingly valuable during periods of severe weather.

Climate resilience starts with existing assets

Much of the public-sector sustainability discussion focuses on new building development or major retrofit programmes. While these initiatives remain essential, local authorities can also uncover significant value from the buildings they already own.

The most effective resilience strategies often begin by understanding how existing assets perform. Which schools consistently experience overheating issues? Which community facilities consume disproportionate amounts of energy during summer months? Which HVAC systems are nearing end-of-life and likely to fail during periods of peak demand?

Intelligent FM solutions help answer these questions through evidence rather than assumption. The result is better-informed capital planning, more effective maintenance strategies and stronger business cases for future investment.

This is particularly important as councils seek to balance net-zero ambitions with ongoing financial constraints. Data-driven decision-making helps ensure limited budgets are directed towards interventions that deliver the greatest operational and community benefit.

Thinking beyond the heatwave

The lessons from the recent heatwave extend beyond cooling. The same visibility, automation and predictive capabilities that support heat resilience can also help local authorities respond to other climate-related challenges, from severe weather events and flooding to changes in occupancy patterns and increasing pressure on public infrastructure.

In many ways, extreme heat provides a useful lens through which to view the future of facilities management. It demonstrates how closely building performance, service delivery, energy efficiency and resident experience are connected. As weather patterns become increasingly unpredictable, local authorities will need operational systems capable of adapting just as quickly.

A strategic opportunity for council leaders

Facilities management has traditionally operated behind the scenes, keeping buildings functional and services running. Increasingly, however, it has a broader role to play in organisational resilience.

The recent heatwave showed that climate-related disruption is no longer a theoretical risk. It is already affecting schools, transport networks, workplaces and communities across the UK.

For local authorities, the opportunity is not simply to react more effectively during the next heatwave. It is to use data, technology and intelligent facilities management practices to create more resilient, efficient and adaptable public buildings year-round.

Because when public services depend on the performance of the spaces they operate from, understanding those spaces has never been more important.

MRI Software can help

To find out more about MRI’s facilities management and smart building solutions are helping local education authorities, click this link or call +44 (0)20 3861 7100

A wider ecosystem for Local Government, one supplier for multiple solutions

It’s important for local authorities to reduce cost and risk by having unified solutions from one supplier, or as few as possible. MRI offers a full ecosystem, including Revenues & Benefits, Education Management, Social Housing & Homelessness Management, Property & Asset Management, Lease and Capital Accounting, Facilities and Energy Management and Footfall Analytics. To explore more about MRI’s full ecosystem, visit this link

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