Just four schools rebuilt in last two years, government admits as concrete crisis deepens

Only four schools have been refurbished under the government’s main rebuilding programme, despite Rishi Sunak’s promise it would cover 50 a year.

The PM has been forced to deny claims by a former top civil servant that he had ignored warnings over a “critical risk to life” by cutting repairs funding when he was chancellor.

The government is also reeling from extraordinary outburst by education secretary Gillian Keegan who said others had “sat on their a***” over the crisis and she had done a “f****** good job”.

It emerged on Tuesday that the Department for Education (DfE) school rebuilding programme for England launched in 2021 to rebuild 500 schools in a decade – 50 a year – has gotten off to a very slow start.

Just four schools have been completed in the past two years, The Independent understands. But government sources said they remain confident the numbers can be ramped up over the years, and pointed out that other funding pots for repairs were available.

Rishi Sunak’s spokesman said it was “wrong” to say that only four schools have been rebuilt overall since 2020. He said that the four schools were the only ones completed under that “specific programme” and other work had been done under other schemes.

He said: “The number of schools built over years will vary depending on the type of scheme. So obviously some of these schemes overlap.”

“It’s wrong to say that no schools, to give the impression at least, that since 2020 just four schools have been completed. In actual fact in [2020]-2021 it’s 72 [and] 2021-22 for example it’s 47,” said the No 10 official.

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It comes as the head of the National Audit Office (NAO) accused the government of a “sticking plaster approach” to buildings repairs in scathing remarks about years of “underinvestment”.

Gareth Davies, head of the spending watchdog, said the government had neglected the “unflashy” job of maintaining public buildings. Writing in The Times, the NAO chief mourned the “lack of a robust long-term programme of maintenance and replacement”.

A report by the NAO in June warned of failure to kickstart the school rebuilding programme. The watchdog said that by March of this year the DfE had awarded just 24 contracts for rebuilding work – far behind a target of 83 by this year.

The PM was drawn into the centre of the scandal after Jonathan Slater, the former top civil servant at the DfE, revealed that officials knew of the need to rebuild between 300 and 400 schools a year while Mr Sunak was in the Treasury up until 2022.

Mr Slater told the BBC of his “frustration”, claiming it was cut from 100 a year to 50 by Mr Sunak as part of the 2021 review decision. The ex-permanent secretary said he was “absolutely amazed”.

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But Mr Sunak and No 10 denied that it amounted to a cut. The PM said funding repairs for 50 schools a year was “completely in line with what we have always done”.

Bridget Phillipson, Labour’s shadow education secretary, said the figures showing only four schools had been completed under the main rebuilding programme showed the government was working at “a snail’s pace”.

“The defining image of 13 years of education under the Conservatives will be children cowering under steel props to stop the ceiling from falling on their heads,” she said.

The Labour frontbencher accused Mr Sunak and his government of “running from its responsibility to keep children safe in school” – urging the PM to “stop sitting on his hands and get a grip of this mess”.

Senior Tory MPs have told The Independent that it is “inevitable” that Mr Sunak and chancellor Jeremy Hunt would have to come up with a new funding package for repairs, as they urged the government to get a grip of the crisis.

Former education secretary Baroness Nicky Morgan was “frustrated” at lack of funding for rebuilding ageing schools whilst education minister.

“The Treasury never, ever says, yes, you can have everything overall – but they’re going to have to now,” Baroness Morgan told Times Radio. “What we can’t now have is second guessing by the Treasury when the scale and the amount to be spent is fully quantified, the Treasury is going to have to find that money.”

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Education minister Nick Gibb claimed on Tuesday that the Tory government is “world leading” in its management of the crisis surrounding crumbling schools.

Asked about education secretary Gillian Keegan’s sweary outburst – in which she claimed to have done a “good f****** job” – he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “This was an off-the-cuff comment.”

“She’s apologised for the language used. What she was trying to get across is the huge amount of work that the DfE has done,” Mr Gibb said. “We are world leading in terms of identifying where Raac is in our school estate.”

Mr Gibb promised a list of schools affected will be published “before Friday” as he put the delay down to the need for it to be “accurate”.

The junior minister tried to defend Mr Sunak – but admitted that the DfE asked for funding to overhaul 200 schools a year in 2021 only for Mr Sunak to grant funding for just 50 a year.

“We put in a bid for 200, but what Rishi agreed to was to continue the rebuilding programme with 50 a year, consistent with what we’d been doing since we came into office,” the minister told Sky.

In criticism caught on camera after an interview on Monday, a frustrated Ms Keegan hit out at those who she argued had “sat on their a*** and done nothing”. She also questioned why no one was saying “you’ve done a f****** good job”.

She later told Sky News she had been referring to her department rather than herself. Ms Keegan also went on to admit to being on holiday in Spain in the run up to ordering more than 100 schools and colleges in England to make complete or partial closures.

She was mocked on Tuesday for tweeting a graphic saying “most schools unaffected” by the Raac crisis, with Labour quick to post a spoof saying “most beachgoers not eaten by big shark”, in reference to the stance of the mayor in the movie Jaws.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said on Tuesday that it was “unforgivable” that children were missing the start of term due to the crumbling concrete crisis. “It is a metaphor, frankly, for their sticking plaster politics: never fixing the fundamentals – always sticking plasters.”

The DfE said £1.1 billion had gone this year into the School Condition Allocations (SCA) for councils to invest in maintaining and improving the condition of their schools, while a further £450m went to the Condition Improvement Fund for urgent repairs and maintenance of stand-alone academy trusts and sixth-form colleges.

On the main rebuilding programme, a spokesperson for the department said: “We have committed to rebuilding 500 schools under the schools rebuilding programme between 2020 and 2030 and are on track to deliver that commitment.

“Awarding contracts and establishing projects takes time but we have made rapid progress and are exceeding delivery timescales compared to the previous priority school building programme, while delivering schools that will be net zero in operation. The Infrastructure and Project Authority has also highlighted the strength of the SRP’s progress.”