Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many Departmental personnel working on (a) the School Rebuilding Programme, (b) the Condition Improvement Fund and (c) other capital projects are being diverted to work on managing reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) in schools.

Nothing is more important than the safety of children and staff. The Department’s focus is on supporting schools and colleges to put in place suitable mitigations to minimise disruption to learning. All schools where RAAC is confirmed are provided with a dedicated caseworker to support them and help implement a mitigation plan and minimise the disruption to teaching. The Department redeployed officials to ensure there is resource to focus on supporting schools as required.

Eight survey firms are contracted to deliver surveys to all suspected cases. Schools and colleges that have advised the Department they suspect they might have RAAC will be surveyed within a matter of weeks.

Project delivery, property, and technical experts will be on hand to support schools to put face to face education measures in place.

The Department will fund emergency mitigation work needed to make buildings safe, including installing alternative classroom space where necessary. The Department will also fund longer term refurbishment projects, or rebuilding projects where these are needed, to rectify the RAAC issue in the long term.

The School Rebuilding Programme will transform buildings at 500 schools and colleges over the next decade. It prioritises rebuilding or refurbishing poor condition buildings, providing modern designs, with new buildings being net zero carbon in operation. The first 400 schools have already been selected, 12 of which have confirmed RAAC. All previously confirmed School Rebuilding Programme projects announced in 2021 and 2022 will continue to go ahead. A full list of confirmed projects is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-rebuilding-programme-schools-in-the-programme.

In addition to the School Rebuilding Programme, the Department announced £1.8 billion in both 2022/23 and 2023/24 to improve the condition of the school estate.