Could a small-scale political project, close to the heart of successive Conservative prime ministers, really have been put ahead of such a fundamental aim as keeping children safe at school?
This troubling question was provoked by an interview on Radio 4’s Today programme last week, in which Jonathan Slater, the Department for Education’s permanent secretary from 2016 to 2020, warned that ministers had prioritised opening more free schools – one of the Conservatives’ high-profile policies from 2010 – ahead of rebuilding work for the rest of England’s 21,600-school estate.
