The row over crumbling concrete is growing as schools claimed they filled in safety surveys “months ago”, after the Education Secretary told headteachers to “get off their backsides” and send back the forms.
Gillian Keegan, who also faced criticism for claiming that “everyone else has sat on their arse” while she tried to fix the scandal, has accused five per cent of schools or responsible bodies of not responding to the survey asking if they had dangerous RAAC concrete in their buildings.
Earlier this week, Baroness Barran sent out hundreds of “telling off” letters to teachers. They said: “While the Department for Education (DfE) will give you our best advice and support should RAAC be identified, I would remind you that you are the body responsible for the maintenance and safety of your school buildings. Given the new advice that we issued last week, it is imperative that you return the questionnaire by September 8.”
But school leaders on Wednesday hit back and said they are concerned the Government is not keeping proper records and may have “lost” the responses they sent back “months ago”.
One London headteacher said: “We responded months ago and still received a telling off letter. What is the DfE doing? Have they lost our forms? They’re the ones that need to get organised.”
More than 100 schools have been disrupted on the first week of term by the scandal. General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders Geoff Barton said one headteacher had sent back the concrete survey three times, and the Government claimed they had not received it.
He told the BBC: “It raises questions about whether the department is keeping records. Another person emailed me last night [saying] we have sent our questionnaire three times. This blame game is deeply unhelpful.”
As Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer clashed at their first session of PMQs following the summer break, Labour was looking to force the Government to hand over written advice the Prime Minister was given about the crumbling concrete in schools when he was chancellor.
“The least we’re entitled to know is what risks were pointed out to him in 2021,” Sir Keir told BBC Breakfast on a visit to Park View School in Tottenham, which lost the use of 15 classrooms when RAAC was identified in the building six months ago. “He took a choice to cut the tax rate on champagne… and not to sign off on funding for schools.”
The Labour leader refused to spell out what funding he would give to schools if he wins power next year.
Defence Secretary Grant Shapps was pressed about a BBC report that at least 13 RAAC-affected schools saw their renovation funding cancelled when the Tories came to power in 2010. He said that as chancellor, Mr Sunak had increased the rebuilding budget by a quarter in 2021, and told the BBC the report noted that “many of those schools have had other maintenance work and other actions, renovations, taken place”.
Mr Shapps also defended the embattled Education Secretary’s handling of the crisis. But Labour said she had “serious questions to answer” after it emerged that a company linked to her husband was given a £1 million IT contract from a fund earmarked for rebuilding schools.
Labour also sharpened its pre-election attacks on the Government, mocking a Department for Education social media post which stresses that most schools are unaffected. The party’s viral response noted that most beachgoers in the film “Jaws” were not eaten by a shark.
Catherine McKinnell, Labour’s Shadow Schools Minister said: “They won’t fix the schools but they will try to pass the buck. This is yet more evidence of a Conservative government in chaos.
“The Education Secretary has been blaming schools and teachers, when it’s the Prime Minister who slashed the budget for school rebuilding who needs to take responsibility.
“Parents and headteachers urgently need the Prime Minister to get a grip, own up to the scale of the problem, and publish an accurate list of all schools with dangerous crumbly concrete now.”
It comes as it was revealed at least two London schools caught up in the crumbling concrete scandal had funding for rebuilding withdrawn in 2010. London Oratory School in Fulham and The Ellen Wilkinson School for Girls in Ealing are among more than a dozen schools confirmed to have RAAC that had renovation financing cut by the Government. The work had been signed off under the previous Labour administration, but later scrapped, the BBC found.
Leader of Hammersmith and Fulham council Stephen Cowan said: “So many schools regularly sought government funding for the poor state of their buildings since 2010, including dealing with crumbly concrete, but they were met with an institutionalised indifference.”
The DfE said: “We committed to rebuilding 500 schools over the next decade as part of the Schools Rebuilding Programme and we are on track to deliver that.”
