Schools: Air Conditioning

(asked on 24th January 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to his Department's Press Release of 24 January 2022 entitled More support for schools and students as plan B comes to an end, what estimate his Department has made of the number of air cleaning units needed in addition to the 8,000 to which he has already committed, in order to provide one such unit for all classrooms and teaching spaces that need them.


Answered by
Robin Walker Portrait
Robin Walker
This question was answered on 28th January 2022

The total number of air cleaning units that providers have applied for was just over 8,000. Up to an additional 1,000 units have now been ordered, bringing the total number of units available up to 9,000, allowing all eligible applications to be fulfilled.

Air cleaning units were allocated to providers based on need, using the eligibility criteria we have set out in our guidance here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/12cU_I5q0v1_my97yPMpb87RsSL5d5lpj. As of 24 January, 1,265 providers that applied for department-funded air cleaning units were eligible for air cleaning units.

We are currently finalising the total number of units allocated to providers. This will depend on the needs identified by eligible providers, including the number of people using the room(s).

The total number of eligible providers mirrors published summary findings from the department’s survey of the use of CO2 monitors, which show that only 3% of providers using CO2 monitors reported sustained high CO2 readings that could not otherwise be addressed. This is available to view here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/co2-monitor-survey-and-applications-for-air-cleaning-units. Natural ventilation is best where that is achievable, and the evidence supports that, in the vast majority of cases, teaching spaces and classrooms benefit from sufficient natural ventilation.

We will keep the provision of air cleaning units under review as part of our overall response to COVID-19 and we will continue to work with the sector to understand ventilation needs across the education estate.

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