Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the estimated backlog of fire-safety-related repairs is across the school estate in (a) England, (b) Shropshire and (c) north Shropshire; and what proportion of that backlog relates to schools built before 1980.

Since the 2014/15 academic year, the risk protection arrangement (RPA) has received a total of 551 fire-related claims from members. 52 claims were from the West Midlands, 4 from Shropshire and 2 claims were specifically from North Shropshire.

Schools and their responsible bodies are not obliged to notify the department of fires at their premises and we therefore do not routinely collect or record this data more widely, nor information on fire-safety-related repairs.

The department provides guidance about fire safety to bodies responsible for schools, including in the ‘Good Estate Management for Schools’ guide, available here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/good-estate-management-for-schools/health-and-safety. It is the responsibility of those who run our schools to ensure that a fire risk assessment is undertaken and kept up to date, reflecting the specific characteristics of the building for which it was written.