Secretary of State for Education (): This update follows from
my oral statement to the House on 4 September.
On 6 September we published the list of 147 education settings
known to be affected by RAAC. Thanks to the hard work of school
and college leaders, all of these settings are offering
face-to-face education, with 126 settings offering full time
face-to-face education for all pupils.
An updated list of schools and colleges with confirmed cases of
RAAC has been published today. As of 14 September, a further 27
settings have confirmed RAAC in some of their buildings. Of the
174 confirmed cases, 148 settings are providing full time
face-to-face education for all pupils.
Last year, we issued a questionnaire to responsible bodies for
all 22,000 schools and colleges in England to ask them to
identify whether they suspected they had RAAC. Since 4 September
we have been working with responsible bodies to confirm the
remaining responses to this questionnaire. Responsible bodies
have, as of today, submitted responses to the questionnaire for
98.6% of schools with blocks built in the target era. We are now
working through all of these responses, and I continue to
encourage all responsible bodies with outstanding responses to
send these to the department as soon as possible.
In my 4 September statement I also committed to complete
outstanding surveys among schools within a matter of weeks. Due
in part to additional surveying capacity we have procured, I can
confirm that every school that was awaiting a survey on 4
September has now been visited or will be visited this week.
Every school or college with confirmed RAAC is assigned dedicated
support from our team of 80 caseworkers who work with them to
assess what support is needed and implement mitigation plans that
are right for them. Mitigation plans could include other spaces
on the school site, or in nearby schools or elsewhere in the
local area, until structural works are carried out or temporary
buildings are installed. A bespoke plan is put in place to ensure
that each school and college receives the support that suits
their circumstances.
Project delivery teams are on site to support schools and
colleges, whether that is finding short-term accommodation
options or designing and putting in place structural solutions
for affected spaces.
The government will fund the emergency mitigation work needed to
make buildings safe, including installing alternative classroom
space where necessary. Where schools and colleges need additional
help with revenue costs, like transport to locations or
temporarily renting a local hall, this should be discussed with
their caseworker and we expect all reasonable requests will be
approved.
The government will fund longer-term refurbishment or rebuilding
projects to rectify the RAAC issue. Schools and colleges will
either be offered capital grants to fund refurbishment work to
permanently remove RAAC, or rebuilding projects where these are
needed, including through the School Rebuilding Programme. We
will set out further details in due course. We will work closely
with responsible bodies to understand and assess what the right
solution is for each case.
I want to reassure pupils, parents and staff that this government
will do whatever it takes to support our schools and colleges in
responding to RAAC and minimise disruption to education.
