More than 100 schools affected by the RAAC crisis will be rebuilt under the Department for Education’s School Rebuilding Programme (SRP), it has been announced today.
Of the 234 schools confirmed to have reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) in the latest DfE update, 119 of them will be rebuilt under the SRP.
Of the remaining schools, 110 will be given a grant to pay for the removal of the RAAC. The five other schools have alternative arrangements in place to address the presence of the collapse-prone concrete, such as the affected building not being part of the school in the longer term.
The DfE is set to confirm to schools today how the removal will be funded. And it added this morning that the 234 settings with confirmed RAAC is the final list.
The SRP was designed to enable 500 schools to be rebuilt over 10 years. Now 110 schools have been added to the programme, on top of those schools previously announced, bringing the total to 513 schools.
The DfE had previously said it would look at increasing the size of the SRP, if necessary, to deal with RAAC.
Tim Warneford, an academy funding consultant, said: “Naturally this announcement is welcome, but the 119 RAAC-affected schools that have been added to the 10-year School Rebuilding Programme will be anxious to learn which year these works will commence. And given that the original target of 50 per year has thus far not been met, they will be seeking clarity as soon as possible.”
In its summer report on the condition of school buildings, the National Audit Office pointed out that the DfE was behind schedule in awarding contracts for the SRP.
As of March 2023, 24 contracts had been awarded from a forecast 83, and one project was completed against a forecast of four.
No date yet for removal of RAAC from schools
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT school leaders’ union, said that plans for removing RAAC were welcome, but added: “There is still a concern that we don’t know the full extent of all the schools affected, as not all surveys have been completed successfully.”
He warned that the Treasury must provide more money to modernise the rest of the school estate or risk other estate issues becoming “the next big crisis”.
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said on the works to address RAAC in schools: “Given the severe pressures on the school estate as a whole, we need assurances that this work will be funded wholly through additional capital expenditure, and money will not be diverted from other sources.”
He added that schools needed timelines for when the work will be completed, and more support from the government in terms of catch-up funding where pupils’ learning has been impacted by RAAC disruption.
School leaders and unions had been calling for the government to provide some certainty on the long-term solutions for RAAC.
Julia Harnden, funding specialist at ASCL, called recently for the chancellor to commit funding to eradicate RAAC in the Spring Budget.
No target date for the eradication of RAAC from the school estate has yet been announced.
DfE minister Baroness Barran assured the House of Lords last week that no school already in the SRP would be displaced by the addition of RAAC schools.
Tes had previously revealed that some more detailed surveys for RAAC were still ongoing as of 19 January. The education secretary confirmed in December that all schools that needed a first survey had one.
Ms Keegan also told MPs in December that the DfE would be able to provide a “definitive date” when all schools could be deemed safe from RAAC “very shortly”.
The DfE said today that its RAAC identification programme is complete, though a small number of schools are carrying out additional checks in some spaces that will be completed “as quickly as possible”.
Ms Keegan said today: “We will continue to work closely with schools and colleges as we take the next step to permanently remove RAAC from affected buildings.”
She also thanked schools for their work in keeping children in face-to-face education during the RAAC crisis where they have been able to.
For the latest education news and analysis delivered directly to your inbox every weekday morning, sign up to the Tes Daily newsletter
