Revealed: 1.5 million children in England are studying in unsuitable school buildings
More than 1.5 million children study in dilapidated school buildings, according to a Guardian investigation. Years of underinvestment have left England’s public infrastructure in a crumbling state.
A study into building conditions in the public sector, including hospitals, schools and courts, has found that thousands are in urgent need of repairs, with conditions for many so poor they are endangering the lives of those who visit and work in the buildings to take.
One school in Cumbria had to be evacuated after inspectors discovered the floor could collapse at any moment. At a hospital in Sutton, the Guardian found masking tape holding windows in place and mud seeping through the floor.
The research combines data from multiple government departments for the first time and has led to calls for ministers to spend hundreds of millions of pounds more to make immediate improvements.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the Conservative chair of the cross-party Public Accounts Committee, said: “Our committee has long warned about the short-term thinking and decision-making in government that has led inexorably to the miasma of rot rising over our public. rich.
“Some hospitals in our country are in a desperate state, with props having to be used to hold up floors – some of which cannot even support the weight of patients needing treatment.”
He added: “Proper maintenance of public buildings can no longer be seen as a non-urgent issue of leaky roofs and drafty rooms. Far from being an abstract issue, these are issues that are of greatest concern and could lead to a snowball effect of additional costs.”
Ministers have for years blamed the previous government for underspending on Britain’s public buildings, with departments regularly raiding their capital budgets to help pay for day-to-day spending.
A government spokesperson said: “We are taking immediate action to remedy the state of disrepair on our public estate, which has been neglected in recent years.”
Experts say poor project management has also contributed to the problem, with several departments failing to spend the money given to them for building maintenance.
Nick Davies, program director at the Institute for Government, said: “The UK has a decades-long history of underinvestment in public sector buildings, but the 2010s saw deep cuts to already limited budgets. Departments have also regularly underspent their capital allocations, made raids to meet shortfalls in daily expenditure and flushed money out the door in the last month of the financial year.
“The result is a record maintenance backlog and an unmodernized estate that makes it much harder for frontline staff to do their jobs and for the public to get the support they need.”
The Guardian research collected data for the first time from the Department for Education, the courts, prison regulators, the NHS and the Department for Work and Pensions.
It showed that one in six schoolchildren studied in schools that either needed a lot of work or were in relatively poor condition. Nearly half of these were in schools deemed unsafe or outdated by the government or regulatory agency and in need of major renovation.
The findings suggest that the problems identified by the previous government with reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC), which led to the closure of more than 100 school buildings last year, are just the tip of the iceberg.
The problem was worst in the Midlands, where 30% of schools were unsafe, outdated or plagued by a high number of deficiencies relative to their size.
Meanwhile, there are signs that government plans to solve the problem are struggling. The school renewal programme, which started in 2022 with a target of 50 schools per year, had completed work in only 24 schools by the end of September.
In the NHS, departmental data showed that a third of sites in England required repairs to avoid major disruption to clinical services, serious injury or prosecution. More than two-thirds needed reorganization to prevent the regulator from taking action.
Figures from NHS England show that the bill to make the estate fit for purpose has more than tripled, from £4.5 billion in 2012-13 to £13.8 billion last year. Nearly £3 billion of the problems needing repairs are considered ‘high risk’ because they pose an ongoing danger to people receiving treatment, working in or visiting hospitals and clinics.
The Guardian analyzed regulatory reports for more than 100 prisons in England and Wales and found that more than a fifth cited serious maintenance problems, dilapidated or poor building conditions or an inhumane environment for prisoners during their last visit. In October this year, almost 20,000 prisoners were held in one of these prisons.
In the justice system, internal government modeling obtained by the Guardian found that only 1% of courthouses in England were deemed to be in good condition as of October 31.
Court records were obtained through a Department of Justice information release. The ‘condition’ rating assigned to each court was an internal government methodology that used desktop analysis to apply a broad condition categorization based on the condition of all mechanical and electrical equipment in each court. This data comes from facilities management providers based on a survey of the estate’s assets conducted in 2020. The result is then adjusted based on more recent data, including a building’s DEC or EPC rating or any events related to facilities management.
Prisons were assessed based on the contents of their most recent report from the Independent Monitoring Board. “Serious problems” meant that inspectors reported “inhumane” conditions, units unfit for habitation or dilapidated, rat or mouse infestations, mold, flooding or legionella. Prisons were considered to have ‘some problems’ if they reported minor problems such as boiler failures, damp or mould, or leaks. Otherwise they were given a ‘satisfactory’ grade by default.
Health data comes from the NHS England Estates Returns Information Collection, and other departmental state data is obtained through a release of information to the Cabinet Office.
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How The Guardian analyzed the condition of public buildings
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The Guardian analysis classified schools into four categories. Those nominated for the school’s rebuilding program were deemed to be in greatest need of reconstruction. That was followed by those with a school condition allocation band of MY, those with band GL, and finally those below band G were deemed to be in an above average condition. These groupings were based on work by the National Audit Office in 2023, as well as Department of Education guidance which described G as the average band.
Court records were obtained through a Department of Justice information release. The ‘condition’ rating assigned to each court was an internal government methodology that used desktop analysis to apply a broad condition categorization based on the condition of all mechanical and electrical equipment in each court. This data comes from facilities management providers based on a survey of the estate’s assets conducted in 2020. The result is then adjusted based on more recent data, including a building’s DEC or EPC rating or any events related to facilities management.
Prisons were assessed based on the contents of their most recent report from the Independent Monitoring Board. “Serious problems” meant that inspectors reported “inhumane” conditions, units unfit for habitation or dilapidated, rat or mouse infestations, mold, flooding or legionella. Prisons were considered to have ‘some problems’ if they reported minor problems such as boiler failures, damp or mould, or leaks. Otherwise they were given a ‘satisfactory’ grade by default.
Health data comes from the NHS England Estates Returns Information Collection, and other departmental state data is obtained through a release of information to the Cabinet Office.
The state of English courtrooms has implications for the justice system. Ministry of Justice figures show that between 2020 and 2023, 202 Crown Court trials had to be adjourned that day due to equipment or accommodation failures, compared to just 90 in the four years before the pandemic.
Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, announced in the budget in October that she would change the government’s budget rules to allow it to borrow more for capital spending. She is now under pressure to use the June spending review to announce significant increases to Whitehall capital budgets.
Davies said: “There is no quick fix to these problems, but the Labor Government has made a positive start to the Budget by increasing capital budgets for 2025-2026. If we are to make meaningful progress over the course of this parliament, significant further investment and improvements in the way this money is spent are needed.