Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how often does her Department plan to inspect the condition of the schools estate.

This government was the first in history to collect comprehensive condition data of the school estate, enabling the department to take the long term decisions to improve school condition based on need. The Condition Data Collection (CDC) programme was the first ever comprehensive survey of the school estate. Previous administrations took no action to understand the condition of the school estate. Running from 2017 to 2019, the survey allowed the department to understand the condition of the school estate over time and informed capital funding and programmes by providing information on the condition of all 22,000 government funded school buildings and 260 further education colleges in England.

Currently, the CDC2 programme is collecting data on the condition of the government funded school estate. CDC2 started in 2021 and will complete in 2026.

The department is considering options for further school condition data collection activities beyond 2026.