It is the responsibility of those who run schools - academy trusts, local authorities and voluntary-aided school bodies - to manage the safety and maintenance of their schools and to alert the department if there is a serious concern with a building. It has always been the case that where the department is made aware a building may pose an immediate risk, immediate action is taken.<\/p>
The department will spend what it takes to keep children safe. The department will fund emergency mitigation work needed to make buildings safe, including installing alternative classroom space where necessary.<\/p>
The department will fund refurbishment projects, or rebuilding projects where these are needed, to remove RAAC from the school estate. Schools and colleges will either be offered capital grants or rebuilding projects where these are needed, including through the School Rebuilding Programme. The department will set out further details for affected schools and colleges in due course.<\/p>
The department will carefully consider claims submitted by responsible bodies for essential RAAC related works, taking into account the particular circumstances of each case.<\/p>
The department recognises that some responsible bodies will already have carried out emergency mitigation works, where RAAC was deemed \u2018critical,\u2019 based on the advice of the department\u2019s surveys or from other qualified professionals, and in most cases we will reimburse these costs.<\/p>
Prior to 31 August 2023, the point at which the department\u2019s advice on the risks of RAAC changed, some responsible bodies or schools may also have chosen to take action on RAAC in their buildings where it wasn\u2019t deemed critical, and others may have chosen to go further and removed RAAC entirely. In these cases, as with any other capital works, the responsible bodies will have taken decisions as part of their own estate strategy, based on their assessment of any professional advice they'd received and the affordability of the project.<\/p>
This work would typically have been funded through annual capital funding provided by the department to the sector, or from other sources of funding, such as a responsible body\u2019s reserves. In these cases, the department is not providing additional funding to the funding the responsible bodies will have used to pay for the work.<\/p>
In addition to the department\u2019s support on RAAC, the department has committed £1.8 billion of capital funding for the 2023/24 financial year to improve the condition of school buildings, as part of over £15 billion allocated since 2015. Alongside this, the department will transform poor condition buildings at 500 schools and sixth form colleges over the coming decade through the School Rebuilding Programme.<\/p>
The department will always put the safety and wellbeing of children and staff in schools and colleges at the heart of its policy decisions. The government has taken more proactive action to identify and mitigate RAAC in education settings than the devolved administrations in the UK, or indeed, governments overseas.<\/p>"} , "answeringMember" : {"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/members/4703", "label" : {"_value" : "Biography information for Baroness Barran"} } , "answeringMemberPrinted" : {"_value" : "Baroness Barran"} , "dateOfAnswer" : {"_value" : "2023-11-22", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} , "isMinisterialCorrection" : {"_value" : "false", "_datatype" : "boolean"} , "questionFirstAnswered" : [{"_value" : "2023-11-22T17:57:46.993Z", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} ]} , "answeringDeptId" : {"_value" : "60"} , "answeringDeptShortName" : {"_value" : "Education"} , "answeringDeptSortName" : {"_value" : "Education"} , "date" : {"_value" : "2023-11-08", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} , "hansardHeading" : {"_value" : "Schools: Concrete"} , "houseId" : {"_value" : "2"} , "legislature" : [{"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/terms/25277", "prefLabel" : {"_value" : "House of Lords"} } ], "questionText" : "To ask His Majesty's Government whether they will be providing funding to schools which identified safety issues relating to reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete and which began or finished the relevant repair work before July to fully cover the cost of such work.", "registeredInterest" : {"_value" : "false", "_datatype" : "boolean"} , "tablingMember" : {"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/members/4719", "label" : {"_value" : "Biography information for Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle"} } , "tablingMemberPrinted" : [{"_value" : "Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle"} ], "uin" : "HL91"} , {"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/resources/1662214", "AnsweringBody" : [{"_value" : "Department for Education"} ], "answer" : {"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/resources/1662214/answer", "answerText" : {"_value" : "
All new educational buildings delivered by the department are designed to a robust specification that includes minimum expected lifespan of all components of the building, both externally and internally, based on current construction industry standards.<\/p>
The current specification requires the minimum building life expectancy to be 50 years for the key structural components. Most buildings however last much longer with regular maintenance and proper oversight. The school estate has many excellent functioning buildings performing well as education settings from the last 150 years.<\/p>
<\/p>
<\/p>"} , "answeringMember" : {"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/members/4703", "label" : {"_value" : "Biography information for Baroness Barran"} } , "answeringMemberPrinted" : {"_value" : "Baroness Barran"} , "dateOfAnswer" : {"_value" : "2023-10-16", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} , "isMinisterialCorrection" : {"_value" : "false", "_datatype" : "boolean"} , "questionFirstAnswered" : [{"_value" : "2023-10-16T09:46:08.463Z", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} ]} , "answeringDeptId" : {"_value" : "60"} , "answeringDeptShortName" : {"_value" : "Education"} , "answeringDeptSortName" : {"_value" : "Education"} , "date" : {"_value" : "2023-09-20", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} , "hansardHeading" : {"_value" : "Schools: Buildings"} , "houseId" : {"_value" : "2"} , "legislature" : [{"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/terms/25277", "prefLabel" : {"_value" : "House of Lords"} } ], "questionText" : "To ask His Majesty's Government what is the minimum expected lifespan of new schools currently being constructed.", "registeredInterest" : {"_value" : "false", "_datatype" : "boolean"} , "tablingMember" : {"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/members/4719", "label" : {"_value" : "Biography information for Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle"} } , "tablingMemberPrinted" : [{"_value" : "Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle"} ], "uin" : "HL10342"} , {"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/resources/1651485", "AnsweringBody" : [{"_value" : "Department for Education"} ], "answer" : {"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/resources/1651485/answer", "answerText" : {"_value" : "
Every school in England has existing legal obligations not to discriminate unlawfully on the grounds of a protected characteristic. It is for the governing board of a school to decide whether there should be a school uniform policy and if so, what it should be.<\/p>
The department has not made an assessment of the number of schools with codes on hairstyles.<\/p>
The department has published non statutory guidance to help schools to consider their equalities responsibilities in relation to uniform policies. The guidance is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-uniform/school-uniforms<\/a>.<\/p>