‘A near miss” is how the Standing Committee on Structural Safety (SCOSS) described the partial collapse of a roof at a primary school in Kent in 2018. The collapse happened at a weekend, when the school was unoccupied; otherwise it could have resulted in injuries or even fatalities.
That “near miss” caused SCOSS to issue an alert a few months later. It warned that the collapse was caused by the roof’s construction using reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac), and said “sight must not be lost of the fact that the 2018 collapse was sudden with very little noticeable warning”.
Now the government has ordered more than 100 schools in England confirmed to have Raac buildings to close them, just days before the beginning of the autumn term. Ministers expect the number to grow once a survey of almost 600 at-risk buildings has been finalised. These closures will be highly disruptive for pupils: some will have to learn remotely, others will have lessons in temporary classrooms or will have to move school.
Raac is a form of concrete filled with air bubbles that is weaker and less durable than traditional concrete. It was used in the construction of buildings with flat roofs – no one knows how many – between the 1950s and the 1990s in the UK. At best it has a life expectancy of 30 years, after which it needs replacing, but it was so poorly used in some construction that the risks have been compounded.
Numerous warnings about Raac appear to have gone unheeded by ministers since a 1990s SCOSS report first warned of the dangers. The Local Government Association has been raising alarm bells since 2018. In 2020, building professionals expressed concerns that they were frequently encountering Raac planks in school buildings, and flagging that they were becoming more defective over time. In 2022, the Institution of Structural Engineers warned that not all existential defects in Raac buildings were visible, and the Office of Government Property issued an alert saying that it considered Raac to be “life-expired” and thus liable to collapse.
So it simply isn’t good enough for ministers to say that they were presented with new information over the summer – reportedly, the Department for Education learned of further instances of Raac structures collapsing without warning – that led them to issue the new order for schools to close buildings. Indeed, as the Observer reported last year, leaked internal government memos show that senior civil servants have been aware for some time of school sites so dilapidated that they represent a “risk to life”.
The most pressing question is how this dangerous state of affairs will be rectified. Replacing and modifying Raac-constructed buildings is expensive; Sheffield city council is spending more than £500,000 to remove a roof in one school; another school in Manchester has spent £400,000 replacing a roof. It is unclear who will meet these costs; the government has said it will fund “immediate” works, such as erecting temporary classrooms and propping up buildings. It has not said it will meet the costs of replacing unsafe buildings; moreover, schools must themselves fund any additional “revenue” costs, likely to include things like kitting out temporary classrooms – hardly feasible, given stretched budgets.
It isn’t just schools: there are at least 24 hospitals, seven court buildings and four government buildings affected. Harrow crown court had to close altogether last month.
There could hardly be a more fitting metaphor for the crumbling public realm. Public services, from hospitals and schools to older care and children’s services, have gone desperately underfunded as a result of almost 15 years of austerity imposed by Conservative chancellors. That applies, too, to the capital funding needed to maintain and replace school buildings, which dropped dramatically after 2010. A Guardian investigation in 2019 found one in six schools required urgent repairs; that figure will have since got worse, and, according to the National Audit Office, more than a third of schools are past their estimated design lifespan and so need replacing. If the government simply diverts its already insufficient budget for rebuilding schools towards the Raac problem, other longstanding issues will go unaddressed for even longer. Some experts say we simply cannot know how many public buildings are affected and it might be more widespread than existing estimates.
This debacle also highlights the crippling short-termism that infects wider government policy. This issue has been known about for long enough for politicians to have addressed it; they chose to look the other way. The Grenfell fire could have been averted; it took the death of 72 people for the government to act at all, and even then there remain too many buildings built with dangerously flammable materials in the UK.
So perhaps we should not be surprised that a “near miss” that could have easily resulted in tragedy was not enough to get ministers to act. But it means that the education secretary Gillian Keegan’s counsel – “if you don’t hear, don’t worry” – will provide scant reassurance to parents worried about the safety of their children’s schools.
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