Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 13 January 2022 to Question 100627, on Special Schools: Ventilation, how many CO2 monitors were offered to special schools.

The CO2 monitor roll out began in September 2021 to all state-funded education providers, including early years, schools and further education providers. This included all special schools and alternative provision, who were prioritised to receive their monitors first given their higher-than-average numbers of vulnerable pupils.

As of 14 January 2022, the department has delivered 22,859 CO2 monitors to special schools, including post-16 special and alternative provision education providers, and 42,665 CO2 monitors to nurseries and early years education providers.

The programme provided state-funded education providers, including special schools, nurseries, and early years education providers, with sufficient monitors to take representative readings from across their estate assessing all spaces in a relatively short space of time. All education providers have received roughly one monitor for every two teaching rooms. Precise numbers vary according to different provider types. CO2 monitors are portable and so schools and other education providers can move them around to test their full estate, starting with areas they suspect may be poorly ventilated.

The department has also provided guidance on how to use CO2 monitors. This is available on the ventilation document sharing platform that all providers have access to.