The Department for Education has been warned by a former schools minister that it is “critical” for them to establish how many schools there are where there is uncertainty about whether RAAC is present.
Robin Walker, chair of the Commons Education Select Committee, pressed the DfE for answers today during a session on how reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) in schools is being dealt with.
Department minister Baroness Barran and permanent secretary Susan Acland-Hood faced MPs’ questions after the DfE updated its list of schools with confirmed RAAC this morning - it now includes 174 schools.
Here is everything we learned from the session today.
1. Timeline of DfE decision making
Education secretary Gillian Keegan and Downing Street were given advice to change the guidance for schools on RAAC on 21 August following two incidents where RAAC planks failed, MPs were told.
Days after this, the DfE then became aware of a third incident where large pieces of concrete “started to come down” in a school after builders started drilling into RAAC. In all three cases, the RAAC had not been assessed as being critical, Baroness Barran said.
She told the Commons Education Select Committee today that ministers received advice at the end of July about a RAAC plank that had failed in a UK school (not in England) and were also made aware of a similar incident in a commercial setting.
She said: “Then about three-and-a-half weeks ago, a similar thing happened in a school in England. In that case, workmen were drilling into a plank to install light fittings and large pieces of the concrete started to come down.”
Baroness Barran said the DfE became aware of the third incident days after ministers had given advice to Ms Keegan and Downing Street on changing its guidance for schools on RAAC.
Mr Walker asked if the department could have acted more quickly. In response, Baroness Barran said: “I genuinely think the answer to this is that we could not have acted quicker.”
The DfE advised schools to close buildings with RAAC confirmed on August 31 ten days after the advice went to Ms Keegan.
2. DfE to call RAAC survey non-responders ‘imminently’
Baroness Barran told MPs that the DfE has had a 98.6 per cent response rate to its RAAC survey from responsible bodies for the 15,158 school buildings that were built in the RAAC era.
She was asked why she thought some bodies were yet to respond.
“You mean despite me writing to them repeatedly? Honestly, we are now at the point where we are going to be ringing them up individually,” she replied. “Luckily it is a very small number and those calls are going to be starting imminently…It is worrying.”
3. Concern over trust and council capacity to manage sites
Baroness Barran said the DfE had some concerns about the capability of some responsible bodies to manage their school estate.
Commenting on how well responsible bodies know the condition of their school buildings, she added: “I would really like to thank the ones that have carried out that responsibility with incredible thoroughness. But we are aware there are some who have not done or are not doing regular surveys of their school estate.”
Baroness Barran said it was troubling because “we give them condition funding to spend and we’d like to know they’re spending it where it’s most needed”.
She said there was a worry in the department about the capability of some responsible bodies in relation to the school estate. She said that the DfE had capital advisers who could go in to support academy trusts. Baroness Barran added that these concerns were not related to the size of the responsible body and said there were examples in single-school trusts but also in a handful of local authorities.
4. ‘Critical’ to establish how many schools where RAAC is unknown
Mr Walker told the DfE it was “critical” for the department to establish how many schools there are where the presence of RAAC is unknown.
Baroness Barran was asked how many responsible bodies have told the DfE that they do not know whether they have RAAC in their school buildings.
She told the committee that the department was going through this but that she couldn’t provide a figure now or a date for when this would be known.
Committee chairman Mr Walker said: “Surely you ought to be working to a point in which you know how many schools there are where there is uncertainty about RAAC and therefore how many surveys will be needed. That has got to be a pretty critical piece of information for the department, doesn’t it?”
5. DfE provides some numbers on temporary classrooms
Ms Acland-Hood said the DfE is aware of 29 schools that will need temporary accommodation. Of these, 11 already have it in place.
As of the end of last Friday, 180 single classrooms had been ordered and 68 double ones. MP Mark Francois asked for a number of classrooms that had actually been delivered, which Ms Acland-Hood said she wasn’t currently able to provide.
6. The most common mitigation measure is timber ceilings
Baroness Barran told MPs that the most common mitigation measure being put in place is the construction of a timber ceiling underneath an area affected by RAAC. These could last for around 10 years, she added.
Posts propping up RAAC areas are used in a “tiny minority” of cases, she told the committee today.
Committee member Nick Fletcher MP asked whether netting in the ceiling could be used but the minister replied that RAAC planks could be up to six metres wide and eight metres long and added: “I don’t know how strong netting is... I don’t think as a child or a member of staff I’d be particularly comfortable under a net.”
7. ESFA may make more urgent payments for struggling schools
Southend West MP Anna Firth said that Kingsdown School in her constituency is already facing £27,000 in invoices for the surveying and work they’ve had done, and won’t be able to meet the costs.
She asked the DfE when the school could expect a refund. Baroness Barran recommended the school speaks to the Education and Skills Funding Agency and said there could be more urgent payment runs for schools with cash flow problems.
