Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to improve ventilation in school settings in England in line with guidance from the Health and Safety Executive.

Throughout the COVID-19 outbreak, the department has emphasised the importance of ventilation and provided guidance to nurseries, schools and colleges on ventilation requirements. We have always said that where a setting is in operation, it is important to ensure that it is well ventilated and that a comfortable teaching environment is maintained.

As of 26 November, the department has delivered 329,231 carbon dioxide (CO2) monitors to almost all eligible education and childcare settings, backed by £25 million in government funding.

The new monitors will provide further reassurance that existing ventilation measures are working, helping balance the need for good ventilation with keeping classrooms warm. The department has also provided new information on how to use CO2 monitors to better manage ventilation, which has been reviewed by the Health and Safety Executive and the UK Health Security Agency.

CO2 monitors will help prompt nurseries, schools and colleges to take actions to improve ventilation, such as opening windows or through using mechanical ventilation systems, where installed.

If this is not feasible and CO2 readings cannot be improved, nurseries, schools and colleges should look to undertake further works to address the underlying problem. Remedial works to improve ventilation remain the responsibility of individual settings. Schools receive an annual Devolved Formula Capital Allocation to spend on small capital projects or capital purchases.

For more substantial capital works, schools and those responsible for school buildings have access to funding to improve the condition of their buildings through different routes depending on their size and type. Further details are available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/school-capital-funding. Day to day maintenance, including minor repairs to improve ventilation, should be typically funded from revenue budgets.

In addition, the department is making 1,000 department funded air cleaning units available for poorly ventilated teaching spaces and staff rooms in special educational needs and disability (SEND) and alternative provision (AP) settings, including SEND units in mainstream settings, where quick fixes to improve ventilation are not possible. These settings are being prioritised given the number of vulnerable pupils attending those settings.

An online ‘marketplace’ will be available from December for those settings not eligible for a department funded unit. This will provide a route to purchasing air cleaning units directly from suppliers at a suitable specification and competitive price.

Maintaining adequate ventilation remains the responsibility of individual nurseries, schools and colleges. The department is providing additional, exceptional funding for air cleaning units in SEND and AP settings as a way to mitigate the transmission risk amongst the most vulnerable cohorts.

Further advice for schools on balancing the need for increased ventilation while maintaining a comfortable temperature is available in the Health and Safety Executive guidance on air conditioning and ventilation during the COVID-19 outbreak (which can be found here: https://www.hse.gov.uk/coronavirus/equipment-and-machinery/air-conditioning-and-ventilation/index.htm) and the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers' COVID-19 advice (which can be found here: https://www.cibse.org/coronavirus-covid-19).