Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to paragraph 17 of the NAO report on the Condition of school buildings, HC 1516, published on 28 June 2023, what estimate she has made of the number of children studying in schools where the responsible body or her Department believes that major repair works are required in each of the next five years.

It is the responsibility of those who run schools, such as academy trusts, local authorities and voluntary-aided school bodies, to manage the safety and maintenance of their schools based on local knowledge of their estates. They decide how to use annual funding provided, or when to apply to central programmes. The department has allocated over £15 billion since 2015 to support responsible bodies and schools, including £1.8 billion in 2023/24. Where there are serious issues with buildings that cannot be managed independently, the department provides additional support on a case-by-case basis.

Consequently, the department does not hold an estimate of pupil numbers in schools that may need major works over the next five years, nor similar data from responsible bodies.

This government introduced the Condition Data Collection (CDC), the first ever comprehensive survey of the school estate and one of the largest data collection programmes of its kind in Europe. A successor programme, CDC2, is underway and will be complete by 2026. Thanks to its evidence led approach, following the James Review of Capital in 2011, this government has been able to allocate capital funding based on consistent data on condition need.

The National Audit Office, in their report on school buildings in June 2023, provided an estimated number of pupils that were in ‘a school that the responsible body or the Department for Education believes needs major rebuilding or refurbishment’. The figure is often misinterpreted as it is based on the total number of pupils in schools nominated to the School Rebuilding Programme (SRP) in 2022 by responsible bodies, and includes schools that were already selected to be rebuilt in the SRP. Nominations to SRP give an indication of refurbishment need, but as responsible bodies are self-nominated, this is subjective. The figure is also for all pupils in these schools, whereas buildings in poor condition are often only a part of each estate.

Unlike programmes prior to 2010, the SRP and the Priority School Building Programme have been prioritised on condition need. The department robustly evaluated the nominations to the SRP and selected schools with the greatest need. This included all schools with evidence of exceptional need, such as structural issues, verified by the department against the programme criteria.

The SRP now has over 500 projects. The methodology for prioritising schools and all schools included in the programme are published on GOV.UK: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-rebuilding-programme-schools-in-the-programme.

More broadly, the CDC2 survey is already demonstrating the government’s evidence led approach is working. Early indications from the CDC2 data collection to date, and feedback from responsible bodies, shows that in almost every case where a D grade component was identified in the CDC1 report, it has since been addressed.