RAAC: 119 schools to be rebuilt, 110 will get removal grants

Around half of the schools affected by crumbly concrete will get rebuilds with most the others receiving a grant to remove RAAC, but unions say the work “must not divert cash from elsewhere”.

A total of 234 schools are now confirmed as having reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete, an increase of three since the last update in December.

The Department for Education said this is the “final list” – making up around 1 per cent of schools in England. All schools suspected as having RAAC have now had a survey to confirm if it’s present, government said.

However, a “small number” of settings are carrying out “additional checks for further assurance in some spaces”.

Of the 119 RAAC schools being rebuilt, 65 are primary schools and 49 are secondaries, with one all-through school and four others on the list.

Fifty primary schools and 42 secondaries will receive a grant, as will two all-through schools, nine 16-plus institutions and seven “other”.

Five of the settings with RAAC are not being rebuilt or receiving grants from the government at this stage. The DfE said these had a “different route to remove the RAAC”, including one that doesn’t require the department to provide extra cash.

Of these, two are further education colleges, two are schools and one is alternative provision.

New school rebuilding list published

Rebuilds are taking place where work needed to remove RAAC is “more extensive or complex”. Grants will be handed out where “works will typically be smaller in scale”.

Education secretary Gillian Keegan said: “Nothing is more important to me than the safety of every child and member of staff in school.”

She also thanked schools, colleges and local authorities “who have worked tirelessly with the department to ensure all children remain in face-to-face education”.

It contrasts with comments from academies minister Baroness Barran earlier this week who said some council-maintained primaries “were just left on their own, with a headteacher taking all the pressure”.

The government has also published an updated list of schools that are part of its flagship rebuilding programme.

It has added 110 schools to the list this month, many of them with RAAC, taking the total numbers to 513 since the programme began.

Of the 119 RAAC schools facing rebuilds, 13 were already part of the rebuilding programme and 106 were added this month.

It was initially supposed to rebuild 500 schools by 2030, but ministers had indicated numbers could rise as RAAC schools were added.

‘We need new cash and a timeline’

The DfE has not said when each rebuild will be completed, with previous estimates predicting a delivery at a rate “of approximately 50 per year”, however the scheme has already fallen behind schedule.

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, demanded “assurances that this … money will not be diverted from other sources. There must also be clear timelines set out for when this work is going to be completed.”

Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT, also now called for a wider school estates plan to tackle “all school building issues before they become the next big crisis. That can’t happen without more money from the Treasury.”

Just three settings have been added to the government’s latest RAAC list this morning, taking the total number of schools and colleges with the crumbly concrete to 234. 

Thornleigh Salesian College in Bolton, the Barking and Dagenham College in London and the College of Richard Collyer in Horsham, west Sussex, were confirmed to have the concrete today.

RAAC removal plans – the full list