Business
The authorities has offered the “final checklist” of schools and colleges in England that can receive funding to remediate reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC), but has no longer confirmed a total cost.
Final year, the Department for Education (DfE) dedicated to fund the mandatory RAAC remediation works, and the day earlier than as we tell time it printed what it acknowledged became as soon as a final checklist of 234 institutions confirmed that bear the give intention-chance cloth – up three on its earlier update in December.
Of the schools and colleges within the final checklist, 119 can bear one or extra structures rebuilt or refurbished via the College Rebuilding Programme.
The DfE will moreover allocate grant funding to 110 schools for added minor RAAC remediation work.
A extra 5 schools and colleges can bear “different preparations” in plot, the DfE offered. These might perhaps well perhaps consist of taking RAAC-affected structures out of use.
The division has no longer confirmed how noteworthy this will award or when schools might perhaps perhaps query to receive funding, nonetheless.
Education secretary Gillian Keegan acknowledged: “We can continue to work carefully with schools and colleges as we grab the next go to completely eradicate RAAC from affected structures.”
She had beforehand acknowledged that better than 100 RAAC-hit schools might be entirely rebuilt.
A DfE spokesperson suggested CN that funding for RAAC removal would device from unallocated capital budgets so would no longer bear cutting current commitments, at the side of projects already offered within the College Rebuilding Programme.
The DfE added that those accountable for running the structures in affected schools bear obtained affirmation about how RAAC removal will be funded.
All schools and colleges with structures constructed for the length of the period when RAAC became as soon as build in bear spoke back to the DfE questionnaire, and all schools with suspected RAAC had been surveyed for the substance.
With the latest additions, the 10-year College Rebuilding Programme involves 513 institutions.
The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee expressed self-discipline in November that the College Rebuilding Programme became as soon as failing to grab tale of longer-term worth for money by prioritising RAAC-affected schools over schools with other constructing concerns.
The committee moreover repeated concerns raised closing June in a Nationwide Audit Office anecdote that contractors had been reluctant to grab on projects within the draw as a consequence of concerns about inflation.