Rishi Sunak responded to dire warnings about the state of school buildings by halving the number of schools to be rebuilt, a former top civil servant has claimed.
The criticism of the prime minister, by Jonathan Slater, the former permanent secretary at the Department for Education (DfE), comes as hundreds more schools could still be at risk from RAAC.
Mr Slater told Radio 4 this morning that, during his tenure, it was concluded that 300 to 400 schools needed to be replaced each year due to issues with their concrete. The department received funding to work on about 100 schools a year.
A year after Mr Slater left the department in 2020, the spending review was completed, and he said Mr Sunak, then chancellor, cut the Schools Rebuilding Programme to 50 schools a year.
“We weren’t just saying there’s a significant risk of fatality - we were saying it’s a critical risk to life if this programme is not funded,” Mr Slater said.
He added: “There’s no secret about the fact that these concrete-system-built schools post-war had a design life of 30 to 40 years. You don’t know when any individual concrete block is going to crack because it cracks from the inside. But you know it’s going to happen and it has.”
The Labour party has since said its own analysis shows spending on school rebuilding dropped from £765 million in 2019-20 to £416 million in 2021-22 following Mr Sunak becoming chancellor.
Shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson said: “Rishi Sunak bears huge culpability for his role in this debacle: he doubled down on Michael Gove’s decision to axe Labour’s schools rebuilding programme and now the chickens have come home to roost - with yet more disruption to children’s education.”
On Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg Ms Phillipson was asked whether Labour would restart the schools rebuilding programme that the Conservatives axed in 2010. She did not answer.
The prime minister has since defended himself, saying: “I think that is completely and utterly wrong. Actually one of the first things I did as chancellor, in my first spending review in 2020, was to announce a new 10-year school re-building programme for 500 schools.
“Now that equates to about 50 schools a year, that will be refurbished or rebuilt. If you look at what we have been doing over the previous decade, that’s completely in line with what we have always done.”
Up to 1,500 schools yet to respond to RAAC survey
Meanwhile, education secretary Gillian Keegan told Radio 4 this morning that just over 90 per cent of schools have now returned questionnaires reporting whether they had suspected RAAC or not, a significant increase on responses as of May 2023. This could mean that up to 1,500 schools that have yet to respond.
Ms Keegan added that about 450 schools with suspected RAAC will be inspected to confirm this “in the next two weeks”.
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said information was needed on what the DfE is doing to “chase up those questionnaires as a matter of the utmost urgency”.
He added: “These questionnaires were sent out before the crisis erupted over the past few days and we are not blaming the schools concerned.
“However, it is now incumbent upon the DfE to gather this information as soon as possible so that staff, parents and children can be fully confident that the DfE has a full picture of the presence of RAAC and is taking the appropriate action where necessary.”
The Treasury and DfE have been contacted for comment.
