Gillian Keegan: how’s the ‘hot mic’ thing gone down with you?

[Crinklycut]

For my part, I don’t think it was very ministerial, and I do wonder how No. 10 all talk to each other these days (do they just swear all the time?) BUT she is a bit right, isn’t she?

The DfE have finally acted to make the public aware that their children are not safe in school. That’s more than anyone else in the Conservative party has done since they cancelled ‘Building Schools for the Future’ in 2010 and during their 13 years of government.

So how’s it gone down with you?

@jgw1

Well some people pick things up faster than others don't they?

And lots of people put a brave face on defeat don't they?

Well the 25% that will always vote Tory whatever have to post somewhere.

I attended a zoom meeting this morning which had Baroness Barran, Under Secretary of State for Education talking about RAAC. She apologised for sending out the letter to Trusts etc who had actually completed the survey. It was an interesting meeting!

verdantverdure
Labour launched Building Schools For The Future in 2004
The Tories cancelled it in 2010

Do you know why Labour didn't pledge to reinstate the £55bn school rebuilding scheme in its 2015 election manifesto? An oversight? Shadow cabinet members at the time included Ed Miliband (Leader), Rachel Reeves, Yvette Cooper, Lucy Powell, Hilary Benn, Liz Kendall and Sadiq Khan.

Keir Starmer listed 13 schools earlier at PMQs that were due to be done under that 2004 scheme that haven't been done yet. 19 years later.

One of the 13 schools is the London Oratory School - the school managed to find £5.5M for a building project completed in 2015;
https://www.iid.co.uk/project/london-oratory/

I bet it was

They're just surprised "kicking the can down the road and try and leave it for the next lot" hasn't worked quite long enough

The 'next lot' (whoever they may be) need to come up with a better answer than this;
The opposition has pledged to spend £28 billion a year on its Green Prosperity Plan, but this could leave little extra money for rebuilding schools.

“The additional investment promised by Labour is all earmarked for ‘green’ projects which support the UK’s transition to net zero. This implies that even under Labour, non-green investment would be frozen in cash terms.

Jonathan Ashworth, who was made shadow paymaster general in Monday’s reshuffle, declined to say whether Labour would introduce a broader school rebuilding programme if it wins the next election when asked by Sky News on Tuesday.
https://www.standard.co.uk/business/business-news/labour-plans-will-boost-investment-but-could-squeeze-money-for-new-schools-ifs-b1104934.html

@verdantverdure as I was saying.

If anyone is interested, the Institute of Structural Engineers has everything you will ever need to know about RAAC. istructe.org

They list (as far as I can see) just 22 engineers with RAAC experience! As I said earlier, many structural engineers won’t have seen it and won’t have deep knowledge of it. Many engineers design and do not inspect. The list is not good enough obviously! So a bit more work to do by the institute I think.

Is the summer incident name of school known?

I don't think so - but a few days ago they said that the first structure to fail over the summer was located in a commercial building, then a school in Scotland, and finally a school in England.

I take heart from how stroppy my parents and their mate the ex-Tory mayor get about the state of everything.

They're pretty far right but they would prefer the kind of fascism that keeps the trains running on time.

They've been burned by voting for useless UKIP buffoons before, and their Tory MP is "very rude and high-handed" apparently so basically any candidate that chats them up at the garden gate or coffee morning can have their vote at this point.

@jgw1

There's a fella on our local message boards who reckons bits of Broadmoor were built with RAAC.

Which I mention only to illustrate the truism that "There's always one."

@RafaistheKingofClay You are completely wrong about why schools become academies. In my LA we have 13 grammars. All converted to academies by choice. All, when they did do, were outstanding. All the secondaries are academies too. I’m aware a few were “forced” to look for a sponsor and got a new school but it’s not true to say all schools were forced. Many chose to because of perceived freedoms. Freedom comes with responsibility though and looking after your buildings is one of them. Health and safety is another.

All converted to academies by choice

Yeah, my school converted to an academy "by choice" too, when they were offering financial incentives to do so. Remember that?

It wasn't a choice, it was seeing the direction the political wind was blowing in.

It was totally a choice. It was a choice to get more money that very often went into Chief execs’ pockets rather than into the school facilities and teaching resources and staff.

Unless you got a 4 OFSTED then it wasn’t a choice and was forced.

Finally! this is the real question.... wherever the blame lies for this fiasco, schools and many other public buildings will need to be rebuilt and how does a country with the highest tax burden for 70 years, low wages, low growth and 100% gdp to borrowing, fund this?

Tax rises? on who? in a COL crisis... or further cuts to public services... one reason we are in this mess :(

No wonder Labour wont say exactly what they'd do.

There is also the question of does the UK even have the skills available to rebuild? and manage the costs... HS2 anyone?

@Teateaandmoretea not all academies got money apart from to help cover costs of academisation eg legal fees. Our local schools felt the need to become a Trust as it was at the time the Government were saying all schools had to be one and they might allocate one if schools delayed. As usual with many Government policies they did a u turn but our schools were already quite a way down the process

One of my schools hasnt comverted to an academy but that choice has consequences too. Its incredibly difficult to find school improvement partners, to moderate etc. Also each year, the LA offering is reduced as there are less and less customers for it and the top slice is larger than the amount academies charge and they often offer much more for their slice. They used to have teams that supported schools in LAs. They are not really there now. I am politically against academies as they lack accountability, but the choice to not be in one is harder and harder each year.

Did LAs used to have teams who were experts in buildings?

I was talking to someone yesterday who works for an EA and the DofE contacted them the other day/week saying we haven’t got the RAAC forms back from a number of academies in your county can you chase them up please. The EA had to decline and point out they are nothing to do with academies and that such schools are the DofE’s responsibility and they need to do the chasing! 😁

How are the DofE supposed to know that?

Although I'm so far to the left I'm in danger of becoming invisible , I actually have some sympathy with Keegan. Cameron and Osborne are as much to blame with their stupid and vicious Austerity politics. Compounded by the idiocy of Trussonomics.

Sunak's instinct is the same obsession with cuts. Spending cuts to pay for tax cuts for him and his mates. And a belated election bribe perhaps. Gillian Keegan could always resign of course. Position herself for a leadership challenge....

Meanwhile the school repairs - a massive undertaking. Is there time for the Tories to award the contract to Baroness Mone? Dido Harding of the £37billion PPE perhaps? Can't help feeling there's worse than Keegan out there.

They still do to an extent, or access to surveyors and experts they hire. the service level has dropped over time. We currently purchase what us known as a 'buy back' and it covers a certain level of maintenance, advice, property insurances, and inspections like fire, asbestos etc. They guide us on some property issues, but the repairs still mainly comes out of our capital grant which is very small. And we have found its cheaper to get our own inspectors in that use the LA for some things. I dont actually know if they inspected for Raac yet! I also work for an academy chain. They had all their building assessed for raac last year.

I’m not sure if you’re joking? But I’d kind of assume the department of education should know which schools they’re responsible for? They oversee education strategy in this country and I assume came up with the academy model in the first place.

Every academy gets money. They get an amount per pupil from central government and then they decide entirely how to spend it. Some will spend it well and put teachers and kids at the centre and some will siphon some off for fat salaries for execs. Some will try and balance both demands.

I know every academy gets money @Teateaandmoretea but they don’t get vast additional sums of money. The so called fat cats were usually the fat cats in the LEA which state maintained schools had to pay out of their funds