Planned school rebuilds will not be affected by RAAC remedial work

The Department for Education’s officials have affirmed that previously committed school construction projects will not be displaced from the current agenda due to issues arising from deteriorating concrete conditions.

Senior government officials clarified yesterday that the 400 school initiatives already identified will remain within the government’s ten-year plan to construct 500 schools.

When questioned by members of the Public Accounts Committee, DfE Permanent Secretary Susan Acland-Hood emphatically stated that the government would not be excluding any specified schools from the ongoing school reconstruction initiative.

However, she did mention that the remaining 100 slots in the upcoming phase 5 of the program would likely be earmarked for RAAC projects.

The existing construction initiative is designed to renovate 50 schools annually, although it has struggled to meet its delivery targets thus far.

Three months ago, the National Audit Office discovered that only 24 contracts had been awarded three years into the program, well below the targeted 83 projects. This delay was attributed to contractors’ reluctance to accept contracts due to instability in the construction sector and concerns about rising costs.

Despite the previous delivery challenges, Jane Cunliffe, Chief Operating Officer of the DfE’s Operations and Infrastructure Group, expressed confidence in the department’s capacity to undertake more than 50 projects through its supply chain if necessary. This raises the possibility that the government may aim to accelerate project completion rates in response to the current condition of school facilities.

She affirmed that the majority of the additional funding requirements would be addressed in the upcoming spending review, which will cover the later stages of the program.

Projects in Tranches 1, 2, and 3 now have fixed timetables, but many of the 239 projects in Tranche 4, announced in December 2022, are still in the process of finalizing their construction start dates. This flexibility allows the DfE to advance RAAC rebuild projects without affecting the existing project timelines.

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