A school whose heating system was condemned after “flames shot out”, plunging classroom temperatures to 8ºC, is among those that have had bids for emergency repair funding rejected.
Just 826 projects at 733 schools have been allocated money through the Department for Education’s £450 million Condition Improvement Fund (CIF) this year.
The figures represent an almost 60 per cent fall in approved bids since 2020–21, when ministers gave 2,104 projects more than £563 million through the scheme. Bids from 1,283 schools were rejected this year.
The CIF pot is available to standalone academies or trusts with fewer than five schools wanting to keep a building “safe and in good working order”.
