Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many representations her Department has received from bodies responsible for the safety and maintenance of school buildings in their care about urgent and severe buildings condition needs that they have unable to resolve in each year since 2015.

Where the Department is alerted to significant safety issues with a building that cannot be managed with local resources, additional support is provided on a case by case basis. In the last five years, the Department has provided financial support to 104 schools where the urgent building issue cannot be managed locally and threatens school closure. Support was provided for a range of issues, including structural concerns and general condition issues, such as roofing and boiler failures.

Responsible bodies can contact the Department to seek support on an array of capital issues to ascertain what support, including funding, might be available to them. This does not necessarily mean that the responsible body is not able to resolve the issue independently but may be seeking financial support through existing capital programmes or other advice and guidance to support their plans.