Seven education unions – Community, GMB, NAHT, NASUWT, NEU, UNISON and Unite – have today written an urgent open letter (see below) to the Secretary of State for Education highlighting the shocking state of school buildings and calling upon the Government to take urgent action to make them safe and fit for the future.
Research by the House of Commons Library calculates that between 2009-10 and 2021-22, overall capital spending declined by around 37% in cash terms and 50% in real terms.
Such failure to invest in the maintenance and renewal of our school estate inevitably has consequences, and the Department for Education (DfE) acknowledged the situation had reached crisis point late last year, admitting in its Annual Report that some schools are at risk of collapse.
This comes at a time when, as noted by the 2022 TUC report Schools Built for the Future, there is also an urgent need to invest in retrofitting schools to ensure that they are climate resilient and energy efficient.
