Rishi Sunak halved the number of schools in a government rebuilding programme despite warnings that they posed a risk to pupils and teachers, a top civil servant has claimed.

Kevin Schofield www.huffingtonpost.co.uk

Jonathan Slater, who was permanent secretary at the Department for Education for four years until 2020, said it was “frustrating” that the requests were rejected by the Treasury.

His comments drag the prime minister into the growing scandal over crumbling concrete in schools.

It emerged last Thursday that more than 150 schools had been ordered to either partially or completely close because the “RAAC” concrete used to build them is at risk of collapse.

Appearing on Radio 4′s Today programme this morning, Slater said education officials had asked for funding to replaced between 300 and 400 schools a year because of the problem.

However, they were only given the green light to replace around 100 of them.

He said: “We weren’t just saying there’s a significant risk of fatality, we were saying there was a critical risk to life if this programme is not funded.

“It was frustrating. I thought we would get there in the end because of the quality of the data, the age of austerity was over, Boris Johnson had been appointed prime minister, he wanted to put more money into schools we were told.

“I actually did think we would be able this time to increase the funding for the rebuilding programme.”

However, he said that at the time of the next government spending review, the number of schools in the rebuilding programme was halved.

He said: “The spending review was completed a year after I left the department and I was absolutely amazed to see that the decision made by the government was to halve the school rebuilding programme – down from 100 a year to 50 a year.

“The actual ask in the spending review 2021 was to double to 200 … but the actual decision that the chancellor took in 2021 was to halve the size of the programme.”

Asked who the chancellor was at the time, Slater said: “Rishi Sunak.”

A former top civil servant accuses Rishi Sunak of failing to fully fund a critical schools rebuilding scheme when he was Chancellor.

Jonathan Slater tells @BBCNickRobinson 300-400 schools a year needed to be rebuilt but there was only funding for 100, which was further cut to 50

— BBC Radio 4 Today (@BBCr4today) September 4, 2023

Lib Dem education spokesperson Munira Wilson said: “This bombshell revelation shows the blame for this concrete crisis lies firmly at Rishi Sunak’s door.

“He slashed funding to repair crumbling classrooms when officials said it needed to be increased. Now children and parents across the country are paying the price for this disastrously short-sighted decision.

“The government must publish the evidence that was provided by officials at the time, and Rishi Sunak must come before parliament today and explain why this potential threat to pupil’s safety was ignored.

“Families seeing their return to school ruined deserve full transparency from the prime minister about his role in this scandal.”

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PM announces transformative school rebuilding programme

No, not Rishi Sunak 2023 but Boris Johnson 2020. In fact Rishi Sunak halved the budget in 2021.

500 new schools to be built by 2030 but by July 2023 only 4 completed.

Prime Minister’s Office, 10 Downing Street 2020 www.gov.uk

Schools across England are set for a transformative ten-year rebuilding programme under radical plans to be set out by the Prime Minister today [Monday 29 June].

Representing the first major rebuilding programme to be launched since 2014, schools will benefit from substantial additional investment. Schools and colleges will also receive funding this year to refurbish buildings in order to continue raising standards across the country.

The rebuilding programme will start in 2020-21 with the first 50 projects, supported by over £1 billion in funding. Further details of the new, multi-wave ten-year construction programme will be set out at the next Spending Review.

Investment will be targeted at school buildings in the worst condition across England – including substantial investment in the North and the Midlands – as part of the Prime Minister’s plan to level up opportunity for all.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said:

All children deserve the best possible start in life – regardless of their background or where they live.

As we bounce back from the pandemic, it’s important we lay the foundations for a country where everyone has the opportunity to succeed, with our younger generations front and centre of this mission.

This major new investment will make sure our schools and colleges are fit for the future, with better facilities and brand new buildings so that every child gets a world-class education.

He will commit:

Over £1bn to fund the first 50 projects of a new, ten-year school rebuilding programme, starting from 2020-21. These projects will be confirmed in the autumn, and construction on the first sites will begin from September 2021.
£560m and £200m for repairs and upgrades to schools and FE colleges respectively this year.

Rebuilding projects will be greener, helping meet the government’s net zero target, and will focus on modern construction methods to create highly skilled jobs and boost the construction sector.

Investment in schools will be prioritised on the basis of buildings’ condition and further details of the programme, including the approach to eligibility will be confirmed following the Spending Review.

The £560m for school repairs and upgrades comes on top of over £1.4bn in school condition funding already committed in 2020-21.

The £200m for FE colleges this year brings forward plans announced by the Chancellor at Spring Budget this year for £1.5bn of investment over five years to transform the FE college estate.

This fast tracked activity will further support the government’s wider plans to protect jobs and incomes and drive forward the country’s economic recovery from the pandemic.

Later this year government will launch a competition for further funding to ensure that all of England is covered by Institutes of Technology, making sure everyone has the chance to gain higher technical skills and helping unlock growth across the country.

Earlier this month, the Education Secretary announced a £1bn Covid catch-up plan to tackle the impact of lost teaching time.

This included new measures to help primary and secondary pupils catch up, including £650m for state schools to lift educational outcomes and a £350m tutoring scheme specifically for the most disadvantaged

This one-off grant to support pupils in state education during the 2020/21 academic year recognises that these young people have lost time in education as a result of the pandemic, regardless of their income or background.

In his first months in office, the Prime Minister announced an extra £14.4 billion in funding for schools over three years. That translates to £135 million a week and means that every secondary school will receive at least £5,000 a year for each pupil, and primaries at least £4,000 a year.

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Crumbly concrete: “Spend what it takes” but there’s “No new cash”!

Education ‘in complete chaos’ as Labour plans to ramp up pressure in parliament

Pressure is mounting over the Rishi Sunak government to spell the scale of crisis to the British parents as Labour accused the education department of being in “complete chaos”.

www.independent.co.uk

Labour’s shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson said it is “vital” that the government publish the list of all RAAC-constructed buildings that are dangerous “as soon as possible”.

It comes as education secretary Gillian Keegan is set to face the morning broadcast round this morning for the first time since a crumbling concrete crisis and the parliament returns from recess.

Meanwhile, the Treasury has said there is “no extra cash” to fix classrooms prone to collapse, despite Jeremy Hunt’s promises to “spend what it takes” to make classrooms safe.

Speaking on the BBC, Mr Hunt would not speculate on the potential cost of fixing the problem, but said: “We will spend what it takes to make sure children can go to school safely, yes.”

However, Whitehall sources reported that additional costs for headteachers, including transport to alternative schools and catering, will not be covered by central government, according to reports in The Guardian.

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Covid testing to be scaled up in England as winter pressure on NHS draws near

Scientists warned last month that the UK was nearly “flying blind” when it comes to Covid, because many of the surveillance programmes that were in place at the height of the pandemic have been wound down.

Consequences of a Government that knows the cost of everything but the value of nothing. – Owl

Nicola Davis www.theguardian.com

Coronavirus testing and monitoring are set to be scaled up for the winter, the UK’s public health agency has said, as pressures on the health service are expected to rise in the coming months.

Now the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has confirmed that it is planning to boost testing and surveillance as winter approaches.

The announcement has been made as schools and universities prepare for the return of students this week after the summer break, employees head back to work and indoor gatherings become more common – factors that are known to increase the risk of respiratory infections, including Covid, spreading.

Prof Steven Riley, the director general of data, analytics and surveillance at the UKHSA, said: “Planned scaling up of testing and community surveillance for the winter season, when health pressures usually rise, is in progress and UKHSA will make a further announcement regarding community surveillance plans for this winter shortly.

“Protecting the public from Covid-19 remains one of our top priorities. We continue to monitor the threat posed by Covid-19 through our range of surveillance systems and genomics capabilities, which report on infection rates, hospitalisations and the risks posed by new variants.’’

The UKHSA announced last week that the autumn Covid and flu vaccination programme in England was being brought forward to September to ensure that the most vulnerable are protected as the winter draws near.

A new variant, BA.2.86, which has been detected in a number of countries around the world including the UK, the US and Denmark, is probably behind the shift. The variant is being closely monitored because it contains a large number of mutations that might help it to evade immune defences – although experts say little is currently known about how big an impact it may have.

Prof John Edmunds of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said the discovery of the variant in a number of countries in a short space of time was one reason for concern. Another is the large number of genetic differences compared with other Omicron subvariants.

“It is definitely concerning, there’s no question about that,” he said. “The good news is we haven’t seen it suddenly take off anywhere.”.

Edmunds said there were still many unknowns about the variant, making it difficult to assess how much of a risk it posed – including whether it would cause more severe disease than other variants in circulation.

One reason for that, he said, is that there was less data available.

“Our surveillance has been much reduced so we are slightly blinded compared to where we have been in the past,” he said. “If you compare it to where we were with Omicron, it’s really very different in terms of just the quality of our surveillance.”

Dr Emma Hodcroft, a molecular epidemiologist at the University of Berne and the University of Geneva, agreed, adding that time was needed to see how the situation progresses.

“If the ‘slow start’ is real, it may eventually fade away, could linger on at a low frequency, or further mutations could enhance transmission and lead to faster spread,” she said.

Hodcroft said at the moment there was no cause for undue worry about the coming months. But she added:“We should be realistic that we often see waves and that for many people, immunity has waned as they haven’t been boosted or infected in a while.

“At the same time, we have the return from holidays, restart of schools, and resumption of a lot of business travel and meetings – all things we know contribute to respiratory viruses being able to get around.”

Edmunds said Covid had yet to follow seasonal patterns, with cases rising rather than falling over the summer. A key driver in waves so far had been changes to the virus itself, he said.

According to the latest data from UKHSA, largely covering the period between 21 August and 27 August, both the increase in Covid case rates, picked up through testing in hospitals, and the recent rise in Covid hospital admissions in England have stabilised.

Restrictions have been lifted as part of the government’s “living with Covid” strategy, but Dr Mary Ramsay, the head of immunisation at the UKHSA, said people with any symptoms of respiratory illness should avoid mixing with others.

Edmunds agreed. “I doubt whether we’ll see much of a return to a mask-wearing and hand-washing, but those things can help reduce spread as well,” he said.

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More on Whelk Stall: Scale of Musical Chairs in Government since 2019 revealed

‘No Way To Run A Whelk Stall’: Jeremy Hunt Savaged Over Shambolic Tory Record

Jeremy Hunt was left squirming on live TV as he was savaged over the Tories’ chaotic record in government.

Kevin Schofield www.huffingtonpost.co.uk

The chancellor was shown a list of the astonishing number of cabinet jobs given to senior Conservative MPs since the last general election in 2019.

Nadhim Zahawi tops the lost with an incredible nine positions, while Oliver Dowden and Lucy Frazer have seven each, followed by Dominic Raab and Steve Barclay on six.

Appearing on Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips on Sky News, Hunt was told: “One cabinet minister who’s not even in the cabinet any more [Zahawi] had nine jobs.

“This is a higher turnover of even a Premier League manager. You and I support the same team, Chelsea. A Chelsea manager feels safer than a cabinet minister.

“This is no way to run a whelk stall, is it, let alone a government?”

Hunt replied: “We have had turbulence caused by things like the pandemic [and] big changes in our economic model.

“What I would say is that since Rishi Sunak has become prime minister that has changed, and he has made only the most limited changes.

“The most recent change, the defence secretary, was caused by a personal decision by Ben Wallace to step down.

“What Rishi Sunak is interested in is not the personalities, but who is going to get the job done and when people get the job done, he backs them.”

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They’re doing what it takes in Downing St

propping up the Government until the election.

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Education ‘in complete chaos’ as Labour plans to ramp up pressure in parliament

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