School leaders who missed out on a share of the £456 million government fund to tackle their most urgent repair work say that a “crazy and inconsistent” application system is being used to cover a lack of funding.
The Department for Education (DfE) this week revealed that only a third of the 3,061 school building or modernisation projects eligible for its Condition Improvement Fund (CIF) would receive funding.
School infrastructure expert Tim Warneford, who offers a CIF bid service on a no-win no-fee basis, said this year’s round was “the toughest ever” owing to a perfect storm of the CIF pot of £456 million remaining static against a backdrop of rising material and labour costs, and an inflation rate of 11 per cent.
The rise in material and labour costs saw average project expenses rise from £350,000 to £440,000, he told Tes.
Mr Warneford said the drop in the number of awarded projects reflects a reduction in trusts’ financial wherewithal to support their bids and in the ability of the Education and Skills Funding Agency to cross-subsidise other applications that meet their most urgent criteria but where there was no financial contribution.
He said that inflationary pressures, particularly relating to spikes in energy costs, reduced school budgets and reserves from which trusts could choose to make financial contributions. Public Works Loan Board interest rates have also increased from 1.1 per cent to 5.13 per cent. As a result, schools’ ability to meet the affordability criteria for taking out a CIF loan has been affected.
The CIF is available to about 4,500 academies, sixth-form colleges, and voluntary-aided schools but they need to bid for the cash.
For 2023-24, there were 2,076 eligible schools, academies and colleges that applied for 3,061 projects in total, including fire safety improvements, urgent roof repairs and electrical works.
But only a third - 1,033 projects across 859 institutions - will be funded. The total funding amounts to £42 million less than was given out than last year, the figures show.
Mr Warneford said: “With circa £15 billion of backlog funding required to bring the 22,000-school estate to something approaching a fit-for-purpose teaching and learning environment, the 1,033 awarded projects will make those schools safe, warm and dry, but will not make a major contribution to the wider school estate landscape.”
‘This was our sixth unsuccessful bid’
Rachael Warwick, chief executive officer of Ridgeway Education Trust in Oxfordshire, said the latest CIF round was their sixth unsuccessful bid to have rotting and dangerous windows replaced in their girls’ school.
“The boys’ school in our trust has a building with exactly the same design of a central quad, and we were successful with a bid to replace their quad windows in 2018-19 despite the fact that the windows were in a better state than those at Didcot Girls’ School now.”
This year’s bid threshold was 72 points and Ms Warwick’s school scored 63.
“We did very well on two strands of the assessment but only scored 28 out of 60 for ‘project need’.
“This was despite submitting a DfE Condition Data Collection survey from February 2022, which stated that the windows are ‘life expired’, and an independent condition survey, which also judged the windows as ‘life expired’.
“The feedback we were given is that we needed to have evidence that, a) we had to close the school or classes - surely CIF bids are intended to prevent schools having to close, not be awarded on the basis that this has already happened? and, b) we needed to show evidence of maintaining and repairing the windows - which would surely weaken our bid further and is contrary to the previous point.
“The points system is crazy, and the feedback system makes no sense given our identical project at the boys’ school, which was approved four years ago. There will be many schools across the country having the same experiences.
“There is no money to support the system and instead of being honest about that, they are just creating crazy criteria, which justify them knocking back more and more bids for deserving applications.”
Ms Warwick said that when she started as headteacher at Didcot Girls’ School in 2010, the annual devolved formula capital allocation (DFCA) was about £100,00 per year.
“Fast-forward 13 years and it is now £30,000 per annum, so a reduction of 70 per cent.
“We committed 25 per cent of the bid costs (£28,000) for the windows project. To put this figure in context, we received £31,000 in DFCA for Didcot Girls’ School this academic year. If we had been successful, the school’s contribution would have pretty much wiped out the school’s DFCA for the entire year.
“Clearly this system advantages schools which are financially better off rather than those which are likely to be in more desperate need of the premises support available via CIF.”
She said the “vagaries” of the CIF system “mean more children will be educated in buildings that are not fit for purpose and in an environment which is neither safe, comfortable nor acceptable. And the prospect of schools moving to a net-zero position is ludicrous based on this experience.”
Simon Oxenham, director of resources at Southend High School for Boys, agreed.
He told Tes: “By 2025, we have got to have a nominated sustainability lead and a plan to get to net zero. OK, we haven’t got any money, we are down to the wire already and we might get a notice to improve for not doing enough for climate change because, potentially, now you can get a notice to improve for health and safety, Gems (good estate management for schools) and sustainability.”
Mr Oxenham said the bid for work on the main school building, which dates back to 1935, was rejected by one point. “We got a score of 71 and needed 72 ,and were told in feedback about what we should have included - ‘Gem guidance and something else, you would have scored higher’. We shared this with our retained property consultants who look after the school, who said these things were included, so we will appeal.”
He said the root cause of the problem is that there is not a big enough settlement from the Treasury to the DfE.
“The DfE is trying to cover over the cracks but the sector is crumbling. There is a massive pothole on my site. I have got to juggle how fast I run out of cash with the chances of a claim or a fine. It shouldn’t be like that. We should have enough funding to refurbish a classroom every 25 years and rebuild a school every 75 years. I have some classrooms that haven’t been refurbished or redecorated since 1968.”
The DfE has said it does not comment on individual applications. When its CIF funding round was announced earlier this week, minister for the school system Baroness Barran said: “It’s hugely important that every school has access to high-quality learning facilities, and these funding allocations will make sure that responsible bodies can start to plan ahead and get projects started to replace roofs, boilers and windows, so pupils and teachers can learn and work in a comfortable space.”
The department says it has now invested more than £15 billion in upgrading buildings since 2015.
