Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans he has to notify local education authorities and other approved education providers of their duties under the ESFA Output Specification Annex 3 Section 7.1.1.5 relating to fire standards and school notice boards.

The Department is currently working with independent testing houses on developing and assessing the protocols for meeting the proposed British Standard for specifying noticeboards in schools. The Department will, in due course, issue a short note to responsible bodies on these new standards, which will also be included in the updated 'Building Bulletin 100: Design for Fire Safety in Schools' in 2020.

The Department’s output specification is primarily for use in setting construction and design standards for centrally delivered school building projects and is not a statutory guidance document. This specification is available to other responsible bodies in support of any school building construction activities.