PM shown evidence of ‘critical risk to life’ when chancellor, says former top civil servant at Department for Education

Rishi Sunak refused to properly fund a school rebuilding programme when he was chancellor, despite officials presenting evidence that there was “a critical risk to life” from crumbling concrete panels, the Department for Education’s former head civil servant has said.

After the department told Sunak’s Treasury that there was a need to rebuild 300 to 400 schools a year in England, he gave funding for only 100, which was then halved to 50, said Jonathan Slater, the permanent secretary of the department from 2016 to 2020.

Conservative ministers more widely believed a greater funding priority was to build new free schools, Slater told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday, as pupils returned to many schools in England for the new term.

“For me as an official, it seemed that should have been second to safety,” Slater said. “But politics is about choices. And that was a choice they made.”

  • @Jackthelad
    1•1 year ago

    I’m confused.

    In England, these buildings are supposedly “dangerous” and near collapse, yet in Scotland the SNP are doing nothing with their buildings made of the same material.

    Only one of the parties gets criticised though, naturally. Because consistency is impossible these days.

    • tal
      2•1 year ago

      I’d also add a comment from another thread on the subject that I posted in:

      One point I’d make from an earlier thread on the topic – it sounds like RAAC panels were used in a number of countries. It may be that the UK is particularly affected due to having quite a bit of rain – it’s moisture that does the damage.

      But it may also be that the UK is being relatively-proactive. Almost all the articles I see talking about this are in the UK. I wasn’t able to find articles elsewhere saying “yeah, we looked into this, but it’s not an issue in our country because X”.

      We don’t use it much in the US, but it looks like there is at least some out there, and I haven’t seen articles here saying “yeah, this is what the Brits are worried about, and we identified the buildings where it was present here and have determined that it’s not a problem”.

      And use of the stuff is apparently common in mainland Europe, and I see no (English-language) news articles on it there.

      So it may well be that the British response – whether it should have been faster or not – is, in fact, the response that’s actually moving the most-quickly.

      • Echo Dot
        1•1 year ago

        I suspect partly it’s politically motivated. It’s another thing to bash the conservatives over the head with, so the opposition are bringing it up. Maybe the schools would be fine for another 10 years ago knows.

        After all Labour don’t want the gain power and then this immediately comes out, better to make the Tory’s deal with it.

    • @[email protected]English
      2•1 year ago

      All funding has to be justified with lists on how you are going to spend it. If the Tories are not accepting buildings inspections and repairs as credible funding requests, then you will simply not get it. Councils and devolved governments can not depend on charities just providing all the help. They need cash to pay someone to do it, and the Tories are not providing that cash.

      Sunak was videoed stating that as Chancellor he deliberately stopped unnecessary cash going to areas that did not deserve it. He expanded by stating he wanted to move that cash to areas who pay the most like Tunbridge Wells.

      They do not get away with pointing fingers when they control the purse strings.