Just four schools repaired in last two years, government admits

Only four schools have been refurbished under the government’s rebuilding programme despite Rishi Sunak ‘s promise it would cover 50 a year. The PM has been forced to deny claims by a former top civil servant that he had ignored warnings over a ‘critical risk to life’ by cutting repairs funding when he was chancellor. The government is also reeling from extraordinary outburst by education secretary  Gillian Keegan  who said others had ‘sat on their a***’ over the crisis and she had done a ‘f****** good job’. It emerged on Tuesday that the Department for Education (DfE) school rebuilding programme for England launched in 2021 to rebuild 500 schools in a decade – 50 a year – has gotten off to a very slow start. Just four schools have been completed in the past two years, The Independent understands. Officials told Sky News, who first reported on the figures, that they remain confident of ‘ramping up’ to 50 per year. It comes as the head of the National Audit Office (NAO) accused the government of a ‘sticking plaster approach’ to buildings repairs in scathing remarks about years of ‘underinvestment’. Gareth Davies, head of the spending watchdog, said the government had neglected the ‘unflashy’ job of maintaining public buildings. Writing in  The Times , the NAO chief mourned the ‘lack of a robust long-term programme of maintenance and replacement’. A report by the NAO in June warned of failure to kickstart the school repairs programme. The watchdog said that by March of this year the DfE had awarded just 24 contracts for rebuilding work – far behind a target of 83 by this year. The PM was drawn into the centre of the scandal after Jonathan Slater, the former top civil servant at the DfE, revealed that officials knew of the need to rebuild between 300 and 400 schools a year while Mr Sunak was in the Treasury up until 2022. Education secretary Gillina Keegan arrives for cabinet Mr Slater told the BBC of his ‘frustration’, claiming it was cut from 100 a year to 50 by Mr Sunak as part of the 2021 review decision. The ex-permanent secretary said he was ‘absolutely amazed’. But Mr Sunak and No 10 denied that it amounted to a cut. The PM said funding repairs for 50 schools a year was ‘completely in line with what we have always done’. Senior Tory MPs have told The Independent that it is ‘inevitable’ that Mr Sunak and chancellor Jeremy Hunt would have to come up with a new funding package for repairs, as they urged the government to get a grip of the crisis. Former education secretary Baroness Nicky Morgan was ‘frustrated’ at lack of funding for rebuilding ageing schools whilst education minister. ‘The Treasury never, ever says, yes, you can have everything overall – but they’re going to have to now,’ Baroness Morgan told Times Radio. ‘What we can’t now have is second guessing by the Treasury when the scale and the amount to be spent is fully quantified, the Treasury is going to have to find that money.’ The ex-chancellor approved funding for the rebuilding of 50 schools a year Education minister Nick Gibb claimed on Tuesday that the Tory government is ‘world leading’ in its management of the crisis surrounding crumbling schools. Asked about education secretary Gillian Keegan ‘s sweary outburst – in which she claimed to have done a ‘good f****** job’ – he told BBC Radio 4’s  Today  programme: ‘This was an off-the-cuff comment.’ ‘She’s apologised for the language used. What she was trying to get across is the huge amount of work that the DfE has done,’ Mr Gibb said. ‘We are world leading in terms of identifying where Raac is in our school estate.’ Mr Gibb promised a list of schools affected will be published ‘before Friday’ as he put the delay down to the need for it to be ‘accurate’. The junior minister tried to defend Mr Sunak – but admitted that the DfE asked for funding to overhaul 200 schools a year in 2021 only for Mr Sunak to grant funding for just 50 a year. ‘We put in a bid for 200, but what Rishi agreed to was to continue the rebuilding programme with 50 a year, consistent with what we’d been doing since we came into office,’ the minister told Sky. In criticism caught on camera after an interview on Monday, a frustrated Ms Keegan hit out at those who she argued had ‘sat on their a*** and done nothing’. She also questioned why no one was saying ‘you’ve done a f****** good job’. She later told Sky News she had been referring to her department rather than herself. Ms Keegan also went on to admit to being on holiday in Spain in the run up to ordering more than 100 schools and colleges in England to make complete or partial closures. She was mocked on Tuesday for tweeting a graphic saying ‘most schools unaffected’ by the Raac crisis, with Labour quick to post a spoof saying ‘most beachgoers not eaten by big shark’, in reference to the stance of the mayor in the movie Jaws. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said on Tuesday that it was ‘unforgivable’ that children were missing the start of term due to the crumbling concrete crisis. ‘It is a metaphor, frankly, for their sticking plaster politics: never fixing the fundamentals – always sticking plasters.’