School sector leaders have raised serious concerns about the accuracy of Department for Education (DfE) records on RAAC surveys and have questioned the “threatening tone” of a ministerial letter sent out this week.
Tes revealed on Tuesday that Baroness Barran had written to responsible bodies giving them a four-day deadline to return questionnaires on whether their schools have RAAC in their buildings.
The letter read: “The DfE is likely to be required to publish information about schools which have RAAC, schools which do not and schools where there is still uncertainty.”
But now leaders across the sector have raised concerns that the DfE has sent this out to schools where the survey had already been completed.
Writing for Tes, Leora Cruddas, chief executive of the Confederation of School Trusts (CST), said her organisation has established that this has happened to a “relatively large” number of academy trusts.
She has called for the government to “reset” its messaging over the RAAC crisis, which she warned had made the situation harder for schools.
Ms Cruddas added: “This was typified by the email that some trusts received on Monday evening, which asserted they had not completed the RAAC questionnaire. However, it became clear very quickly that these letters had found their way to trusts that had, in fact, completed and returned the questionnaire.
“At CST we spent the next 24 hours working behind the scenes with our members to understand the scale of the issue. What we found was that this appears to affect a relatively large number of trusts, and there appears to be a range of reasons for the discrepancy - none of which is the fault of responsible bodies.”
On Wednesday, Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said it had received six messages from trust and school leaders on the issue.
“All tell us that they returned their RAAC surveys many months ago but on Monday night they received a letter from education minister Baroness Barran effectively threatening to name and shame them if they did not complete the survey by Friday 8 September.”
Mr Barton added that “in two cases, the trusts which have contacted us have overseen a transfer of schools and have questioned whether the DfE’s systems may have not transferred previously completed RAAC surveys of these schools to the new trust, and have therefore recorded the trust’s record as being incomplete”.
Education secretary Gillian Keegan said yesterday afternoon that she was “annoyed” that 5 per cent of schools had not sent their surveys back, and urged responsible bodies to “get off their backsides”.
Jonny Uttley, the chief executive of the Education Alliance (TEAL) trust in Yorkshire, told Tes that the government should not speak to school leaders in the manner it had over the RAAC issue during the past week.
He said: “We received an email at 10pm on Monday which was frankly threatening in tone. The email claimed TEAL had not returned questionnaires for all our schools; this was categorically not true. A school that had its questionnaire completed by the local authority joined the trust on 1 September.”
He added: “There can never be an excuse for such inappropriate emails to leaders or the rhetoric on Tuesday that tried to pin the blame on schools.”
Mr Barton has urged the DfE to review its systems to check if any survey forms have been returned but recorded as not sent back owing to a technical error.
“We would also urge ministers to be very careful about pointing the finger of blame. Ms Keegan’s outbursts this week have not been helpful and have served only to further alienate a sector which already feels badly let down by the government’s appalling neglect of the school estate,” he added.
“The government has known about the risks posed by RAAC since at least 2018 and should have addressed this issue long ago rather than having to order the closure of school buildings at the last minute before a new term begins. It should certainly not be blaming schools for its failings.”
Simon Knight, the joint headteacher of Frank Wise special school, in Oxfordshire, also raised concerns about the way the DfE has communicated with schools.
He said: “Headteachers appreciate that sometimes things occur unexpectedly that need immediate attention, but it is important that we are supported to act decisively, with systems that work, rather than criticised for perceived inaction.
“School safety has to be the number one priority but, as with Covid-19, it feels like decisions are being made in haste as a result of prior inaction rather than being taken in a more proactive and strategic manner.”
On social media, leaders have raised concerns that they have been contacted by the DfE despite already returning surveys.
The DfE has been contacted for comment.
