Branwen Jeffreys
Education editor

Speaking to me in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, this morning, Duncan Campbell said his two sons should have been starting their new term at White Hall Academy tomorrow.

Instead, he has had to arrange emergency childcare for two more days off school.

And while he's frustrated with the government for breaking the news to schools so late in the summer, he feels "lucky" that they at least know the extent of the problem they're facing.

"We know that there's an issue and that it's going to be resolved, and that they are in school this morning trying to work out exactly where the children will be educated," he added

"I feel sorry for those parents sat there thinking, 'Has our school been surveyed?'"

Sarah in West Yorkshire said her son was supposed to start secondary school this week but told 5 Live's Nicky Campbell she’s heard “absolutely nothing” from the school.

Sarah said she is worried because the buildings were in a “shocking state of repair” when she first visited it.

“Watermarks everywhere, crumbling plaster, uneven floors where they've been worn away, just very shabby, very, very old, and now potentially unsafe.”

“I worry about collapsing ceilings and all the rest of it... you can't help but worry with all the secrecy around it,” she said.

Slater's comments expose school building funding gulfpublished at 11:41 British Summer Time 4 September 2023

11:41 BST 4 September 2023

Branwen Jeffreys
Education editor

Between 2016 and 2020, Jonathan Slater was the most senior civil servant in education in England.

This put him at the highest level of government negotiating with the Treasury and Downing Street for the cash to rebuild schools.

His BBC interview today is devastating because it exposes the gulf between the 300-400 schools a year that needed cash for buildings, and the decision that just 50 would get the money when Rishi Sunak was chancellor.

There was a time when former permanent secretaries like Jonathan Slater kept silent - but he is one of a number forced to leave under this government, instead of ministers resigning when mistakes were made.

There are two legacies here: the failure to spend enough on England’s school buildings and a broken relationship with civil servants often blamed by this government.

Image source, Pool

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has been asked about the timing of school closures, just before the new academic year is due to start.

"Of course I know the timing is frustrating," Sunak said.

"New information came to light relatively recently," he added, and said the government acted "as swiftly as possible".

Earlier we heard from Jonathan Slater, the former top civil servant at the Department for Education, who said early indications showed up to 400 schools required refurbishment each year.

Slater directly accused Sunak of deciding to cut the fund by 50% for 2021 - meaning 50 schools would be refurbished or rebuilt. Sunak rejected that claim - saying it was in line with what the government had done previously.

Sunak said around 95% of schools are not affected by RAAC, and of those that are, which the government estimates could be "hundreds more", often it is "limited to a single classroom" that requires work.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak says it's "utterly wrong" to blame him for the failure to tackle RAAC in schools earlier.

Asked whether he would like to apologise after it was said he cut the schools rebuilding budget while chancellor, Sunak pointed to his 10-year programme which put in funds for 50 schools a year to be refurbished.

Image source, Getty Images

It seems like concerns over RAAC concrete in public buildings only bubbled to the surface last week, but that's not the case:

• A ceiling containing RAAC panels collapsed at a primary school in Kent in 2018

• In 2019, an official advisory body - the Standing Committee on Structural Safety - said RAAC was a “significant risk”
• New guidance was issued in 2021 about how to manage RAAC
• In 2021, the Department for Education is said to have asked the Treasury for more money to rebuild schools in England, but the programme was cut from 100 a year to 50

• RAAC guidance was updated in 2022, and the DfE sent out a questionnaire to schools asking them to identify structures made from the material
• Late last month a concrete beam made with RAAC collapsed - although it's not known whether this was in a school or other building
• Last Thursday it was revealed that more than 150 schools in England identified RAAC structures

The Liberal Democrats have put out their response to comments by a former top civil servant that the school rebuilding budget was halved in 2021.

The Lib Dems say Prime Minister Rishi Sunak - who made that decision while Chancellor of the Exchequer - should explain his reasons in Parliament.

The party wants to see the evidence from officials in the Department for Education about school safety which they accuse Sunak of ignoring.

Liberal Democrat education spokesperson Munira Wilson said: “Families seeing their return to school ruined deserve full transparency from the prime minister about his role in this scandal.”

As ever Scotland's schools returned from the summer break ahead of the rest of the UK, with pupils returning last month.

The message from the Scottish government to parents is there is "no immediate risk to pupils and staff" from unsafe concrete.

A total of 35 council-run schools have been found to contain reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC).

All local authorities across Scotland are due to report the findings of structural assessments next week.

Wellbeing Economy Secretary Neil Gray has insisted that, at this point, there is nothing to suggest that school safety has been compromised.

Read more here.

Image source, .

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Hina Robinson’s daughter goes to Wyburns Primary School in Essex and they received a letter last week saying the school building was not usable.

She told 5 Live that despite the school doing the best it can, “the government is at fault for not making sure these things are done quickly enough".

“We don’t want our children in unsafe buildings, and it’s quite clear they’ve been in unsafe buildings all this time, and that should never have happened.”

Robinson sympathises with teachers affected as well: “I know there’s some people out there that think teachers just want a longer holidays, but it’s actually much harder for a teacher to do things this way.”

“They’re doing the best they can for the children.”

Image source, PA Media

If you're just joining us, these are the latest developments on the RAAC crisis in schools this morning:

• Some 1,500 schools have not returned surveys used to identify the crumbling concrete. Education Secretary Gillian Keegan said she expects potentially hundreds more to be identified in the weeks to come
• A former top civil servant at the Department for Education said the budget for rebuilding schools was halved by Rishi Sunak while he was Chancellor in 2021 - down from 100 to 50
• Keegan said £15bn has gone into capital spending for schools since 2015, delivering "value for money" to the sector
• The education secretary confirmed temporary mitigation measures in schools will be funded by the DofE, but other things like transport of students to new locations will be considered on a case-by-case basis
• Keegan said the list of schools affected by unsafe RAAC will be published this week

Postpublished at 09:53 British Summer Time 4 September 2023

09:53 BST 4 September 2023

Henry Zeffman
Chief political correspondent

Rishi Sunak was already under pressure to take charge of the crumbling concrete problem and ensure repairs are made as fast as possible.

Now, thanks to an unusually direct intervention from a retired civil servant, Sunak faces an even more complex problem: showing he is on top of the issue while also defending his actions in the past.

The accusations made by Jonathan Slater, who ran the Department for Education for four years until being sacked in mid-2020, are very serious.

He said he had warned the Treasury there was “a critical risk to life” if it did not fund the repairs programme - but at a 2021 spending review, when Sunak was chancellor, the number of schools given money for repairs was halved.

On some issues Sunak is able to avoid being cast as the author of 13 years of Conservative government because he only arrived in Parliament in 2015. It will be harder for him to do that here.

Some in government are worrying that voters tune out the specific questions about how the RAAC problem developed and instead see it as symptomatic of a government running out of steam.

Labour has accused Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of “putting children’s lives at risk”.

According to the former top civil servant at the Department for Education, Jonathan Slater, Sunak halved the number of schools that could be rebuilt when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer - as we reported earlier.

Labour says spending on the schools rebuilding programme has been cut since 2019.

"Labour’s analysis revealed that spending on school rebuilding in 2019-20 was £765m, but after Sunak became chancellor this dropped to £560m in 2020-21 and as little as £416m in 2021-22, a fall of 41% overall," said the statement.

Image source, Getty Images

Education Secretary Gillian Keegan has been doing interviews on the BBC's breakfast programmes this morning.

From what she said, we know the government will publish a list of schools affected this week, and also that she said "hundreds more" buildings could have potentially unsafe aerated concrete in them.

Keegan told the Today programme that around 10% of schools in England, numbering 1,500, had failed to return surveys to identify RAAC concrete in their structures.

She also said she wants to "go round the loop again" before publishing the list of schools to make sure the list is accurate.

Keegan said £15bn had gone into capital spending for schools since 2015 and there was "no point spending money delivering shoddy buildings".

Education Secretary, Gillian Keegan, says: "104 schools are not mitigated that are being mitigated right now."

She explained that engineers categorised them as a critical or non-critical.

Fifty-two "critical" schools have been done, she said, with 104 originally classed as "non-critical" now viewed more seriously.

The list of schools forced to close, or partially close, due to unsafe RAAC concrete will be published later this week, Education Secretary Gillian Keegan tells Today on Radio 4.

Given her assurances that all parents of children enrolled in affected schools should now have been notified, why not publish it now, asks the Today's Nick Robinson.

"I just want to go around the loop again, check the data. I'm a very detailed person," Keegan says.

Education Secretary Gillian Keegan has said that around 10%, or 1,500 English schools, are yet to return the surveys sent out by the Department for Education to identify RAAC in buildings.

According to responses received so far, only around 1% of schools which have submitted questionnaires were found to have RAAC, Keegan tells BBC Radio 4's Today programme. Fifteen thousand schools in total have been sent surveys.

While not every school which has yet to return its survey will have RAAC in buildings, there could be hundreds more, Keegan accepts.

Sarah Skinner, chief executive of the Penrose Learning Trust, was on BBC Breakfast this morning. Three of the schools in her group have RAAC which is deemed to be unsafe.

She's worried about the availability of temporary classrooms.

"We don't know yet whether we've managed to get any or when they will be delivered," she said.

Skinner said she has been assured the costs of getting temporary classrooms and doing work to make buildings safe - will be covered by government.

She said there remain questions about some areas of her schools, and is hoping to find out more as a review is carried out today.

As we reported earlier, former top civil servant at the Department for Education, Jonathan Slater, told the BBC earlier that the fund for rebuilding schools was halved in 2021, when Rishi Sunak was chancellor.

Was he responsible for this issue now, Education Secretary Gillian Keegan is asked.

"No," she says. "The government will always ask for more than it is going get, that's the nature of public spending.

"What we have been doing since Jonathan left is making sure that we have a really thorough understanding of where there is RAAC."

Keegan argues they have taken swift action.

"I increased the action last week because of the new cases we found. We are in a good position because of the decisions we made last year to collect that information."

Keegan says they will publish the list of schools this week, but doesn't say on which day:

"I am just giving some time to make sure every school has has the capability to speak to parents," the education secretary tells BBC Breakfast.

Education Secretary Gillian Keegan is explaining how temporary classrooms and repair work in schools is going to be paid for.

She says funding for temporary works, including propping up of unsafe structures and the installation of temporary classrooms, will be paid for by the Department of Education.

The government has "committed" to funding longer-term refurbishment or rebuildings, Keegan says, "but we will then have to get a case together to figure out how much it's going to cost".

She confirms this money is not going to come from school budgets, from combination of DofE budgets and other funding.

Keegan is asked how Labour managed to spend £10bn a year on rebuilding schools compared with the £15bn in total made available by the Conservatives.

The education secretary says the government has delivered more new school buildings than their rivals and has been more efficient.