Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what (a) criteria and (b) data were used to determine the destinations of the 7,000 air purifier units announced on 2 January 2022.

On 2 January we announced that 7,000 air cleaning units were being made available for mainstream state-funded settings, in addition to the 1,000 units made available for special and alternative provision settings that we announced in November. The government is now committing to fulfil all eligible applications from 1,265 state funded education providers for just over 8,000 air cleaning units.

Please note that applications are now closed. Units were allocated to settings based on need. Before applying for a funded air cleaning unit, the following criteria had to be met by mainstream providers, as set out in the ‘How to apply for a DfE-funded air cleaning unit’ guidance:

• There have been sustained high CO₂ readings (1500ppm or higher) for at least 1 week while the room is occupied, despite taking all measures possible to introduce ventilation.
• Lengthy remedial works are required in order to address poor ventilation, that cannot be completed before the end of February 2022.
• Air cleaning units will be allocated for teaching spaces only.

There were different criteria for special and alternative provision settings due the higher-than-average number of vulnerable pupils attending those settings. For these providers, air cleaning units were also allocated to poorly ventilated staff rooms. The number of units applied for was just over 8,000, which demonstrates that, in the majority of classrooms and teaching spaces, solutions can already be found to keep ventilation at adequate levels.

The department has also launched an online marketplace which provides settings with a route to purchasing air cleaning units at a suitable specification and competitive price. Further information is available here: https://s107t01-webapp-v2-01.azurewebsites.net/list/air-cleaning. In future, we may review this list and as more products which meet our specification become available, these will be added. All purchases through the marketplace are managed by the supplier, rather than by the department.