Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 19 October 2022 to Question 61298 on Schools: Slough, what assessment her Department has made of the potential effect of the time taken to publish details of the Condition Data Collection survey.

The Condition Data Collection (CDC) was one of the largest and most comprehensive data collection programmes in the UK public sector. It collected data on the building condition of government funded schools in England. The key, high level findings of the CDC programme were published in May 2021 in the ‘Condition of School Buildings Survey: Key Findings’ report. This is available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/989912/Condition_of_School_Buildings_Survey_CDC1_-_key_findings_report.pdf.

Individual reports have been provided to schools and the relevant local authority or trust to help inform their maintenance plans alongside their own more detailed surveys and safety checks.

The Department is planning to publish school level CDC data to increase transparency. Publishing the school level data will also improve local understanding about the condition of school buildings and increase innovation by allowing external organisations to interrogate and analyse the data. The Department is still preparing the school level data and plans to publish it as soon as possible.

Well maintained, safe school buildings are a priority for the Department. The Department has allocated over £13 billion for improving the condition of schools since 2015, including £1.8 billion committed this financial year. Our 10-year School Rebuilding Programme is condition led, and the Department has now provisionally allocated 400 of the 500 available places on the programme.