The Department for Education “can’t say” it is confident that plans to fix school buildings will “eliminate all risk” across the estate, its most senior civil servant has admitted.
Susan Acland-Hood, the DfE’s permanent secretary, told MPs on the Public Accounts Committee that the government takes “immediate action” when there is a risk in the school estate, but “there will be a level of unknown risk underneath”.
And she warned that she did not think the risk rating of collapsing school buildings would be reduced any time soon, partly because of the number of buildings that were erected in the post-war period, which arenow coming to the end of their design life.
Ms Acland-Hood was responding to a question from Labour MP Olivia Blake, who asked how confident she was in the risk rating of buildings that had been surveyed.
Ms Acland-Hood said there was “no form of condition survey that a surveyor will tell you can reliably guarantee that it’s picked up every possible issue”, but added: “What we try to do is make sure that we have as much information as we possibly can in order to make our assessment of risk as good as it can possibly be.
“We obviously take immediate action where there is risk in the school estate but we also know that there will be a level of unknown risk underneath.”
The risk of school buildings collapsing
Pressed on whether she was confident that DfE plans were “adequate” to tackle all issues, she said: “If the question is am I confident that the scale of the programmes we have at the moment will eliminate risk across the school estate, I can’t say that.
“But what I can say is that we have got the best possible information we have to allow us to target money in the programmes we have at the areas of greatest risk and make sure that we’re reducing the risk.”
Ms Acland Hood was later asked whether the DfE’s “school buildings” risk rating, which was upgraded from “critical” to “very likely” in a recent report, was likely to be reduced.
“I don’t think it’s going to come down the risk register very soon. I think we’re going to need to continue to put a lot of focus and attention on this,” she said.
The chair of the committee, Dame Meg Hillier, described the comment as “sobering in 2023”.
According to the DfE’s , “increased numbers of serious structural issues” were identified last October.
And the risk was deemed “unlikely to reduce in 2022 as there was no agreement to increase condition funding or the scale of the rebuilding programme” at the 2021 Spending Review.
The report describes the buildings risk as: “The collapse of one or more blocks in some schools which are at or approaching the end of their designed life expectancy and where structural integrity is impaired.
“The risk predominantly exists in those buildings built in the years 1945 to 1970, which used ‘system build’ light-frame techniques.”
In February, in an open letter to education secretary Gillian Keegan, a coalition of seven unions asked the government to set out the measures taken to eradicate the risk of the collapse of buildings to ensure the safety of pupils and staff.
