Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help ensure that schools are able to carry out high quality repairs on their buildings.

Well-maintained, safe school buildings are a priority for the department in order that they support a high-quality education for all children.

Responsibility for keeping buildings safe and well-maintained lies with schools and their responsible bodies, such as local authorities, academy trusts and voluntary-aided bodies. The department supports them by providing access to annual capital funding, delivering major rebuilding programmes, and offering guidance and support.

The department has allocated over £15 billion since 2015 for keeping schools in England safe and operational, including £1.8 billion in 2023/24. This funding is informed by consistent data on the condition of the school estate. Devolved administrations received funding for education through the Barnett formula at the Spending Review 2021.

Responsible bodies in England, depending on their size and type, are either eligible to receive annual school condition allocation (SCA) funding to use on improving the condition of their schools, or are instead able to bid into the Condition Improvement Fund (CIF) each year for specific capital projects. Schools in England also receive funding to spend on their capital priorities or contribute to larger projects through an annual devolved formula capital allocation (DFC). Details on SCA, DFC and CIF can be found on GOV.UK.

CIF eligible schools can apply for urgent capital support at any time in the year, if they have urgent building issues that need to be addressed. Details on how to apply for urgent capital support are available here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/condition-improvement-fund.

The department provides extensive guidance for responsible bodies to help them make effective spending decisions and manage their estates strategically and safely through resources such as the ‘Good estate management for schools’ guidance. The guidance is available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/good-estate-management-for-schools.

In addition to condition capital funding, the school rebuilding programme (SRP) will transform buildings at 500 schools in Engand over the next decade, prioritising schools in poor condition and with evidence of potential safety issues. The department has announced 400 schools to date, including 239 in December 2022.

The department is providing targeted support for RAAC and will fund emergency mitigation work needed to make school and college buildings safe, including installing alternative classroom space where necessary. Where schools and colleges need additional help with revenue costs, the department expects all reasonable requests will be approved. The department will also fund refurbishment projects, or rebuilding projects where these are needed, to remove RAAC from the school estate, including through the SRP.