National World LDR reporter Paul Faulkner talks to the National Education Union's health and safety committee chair Ian Watkinson about the ongoing RAAC concrete crisis
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00:00 Ian Watkinson, you're the National Lead for Health and Safety with the National Education
00:05 Union and you're not particularly happy are you with the way the situation is being handled
00:09 over rack concrete as it's known, this material that can collapse without warning when it
00:14 reaches the end of its natural lifespan. But the government for its part says that we're
00:18 only in this position with schools being told to close at short notice and uncertainty around
00:23 others while they're investigated because they've taken such a cautious approach. If
00:27 you've got an interest in health and safety, surely that's an approach you'd advocate,
00:31 isn't it?
00:33 Well it's last minute, it's incredibly last minute. The government's known about the problems
00:38 with rack for a long time. There was a classroom ceiling collapse back in 2018 and following
00:48 that there was some action taken and a self-assessment survey sent out to schools and the government
00:55 appears to have been trying to gather information because of that situation since then. However,
01:01 for things to change two days or three days before the start of term is an absolute disgrace.
01:07 It leaves schools and headteachers in an impossible situation. It's leaving parents and children
01:14 trying to make different arrangements because of this last minute announcement that the
01:20 schools are going to have to be checked. Now I completely respect if there's a concern
01:24 about safety then absolutely the schools have got to be checked and we need to know that
01:29 it's safe for children and staff to be in those schools but the government have known
01:34 for a long time that there's a problem so leaving it until the last minute is frankly
01:39 ridiculous.
01:40 But they didn't know that the risk had changed, did it? That's what's changed over the course
01:44 of the past few weeks, that rack that wasn't deemed to be in a critical state was considered
01:50 safe for now whereas things have happened over the summer particularly the collapse
01:55 of one particular beam that have indicated that even rack that isn't deemed critical
01:59 might not be safe to be left for any length of time. So they had to act, didn't they?
02:04 They had no choice.
02:06 It's right that they've acted if they've finally recognised that there is a critical risk but
02:11 those critical risks were identified way back and only this morning or yesterday evening
02:18 a former civil servant, senior civil servant described a situation where it was crystal
02:24 clear that there were hundreds, potentially more, schools at a critical risk of collapse
02:32 and a critical and imminent risk of collapse and that was several years ago and I'm sure
02:40 some of your listeners and readers will have been hearing about Rishi Sunak's response
02:43 to that as he was the Chancellor at the time and rather than investing in the remedial
02:49 works that needed to be done he slashed the budget and cut it more than in half. So absolutely
02:56 safety first of course, safety is paramount but parents, teachers, staff, head teachers
03:03 need to know that their school is safe for them to work in and for children to learn
03:09 in and what's equally perplexing is that there's a marked reluctance to tell us where the schools
03:15 that they actually know about so far and they don't know about all of them, they won't tell
03:19 us where they are.
03:20 Well it's been reported that there's 450 schools where RAC is suspected based on an initial
03:28 self-assessment survey but they haven't yet had a follow-up survey done. The Education
03:33 Secretary said on the BBC this morning that those surveys will be completed within the
03:38 next two weeks. What do you think should happen to those schools in that fortnight entering
03:43 period?
03:46 Well it's yeah so if we've got a school where RAC is suspected and there is that critical
03:53 risk of an imminent collapse then it's got to be a safety first approach. So in those
03:59 schools where they've had the extra surveys and they're having to either partially close
04:03 or fully close and move learning regrettably online for a few days in some of those schools
04:09 or into quarter cabins then if that's the case then that needs to happen. It's got to
04:13 be a safety first approach but I'm not sure that we recognise the numbers. 450 is a scary
04:18 amount but Gillian Keegan also made reference to 10% of the entire school estate not having
04:25 the details on 10% of those so that's over 2,000 schools. So there's different numbers
04:30 being bandied about. We need to know where those schools are, have they been surveyed
04:35 and if they have been surveyed and got RAC what's going to happen about it?
04:39 That 450 figure I should say it's not known whether the RAC within that's suspected would
04:44 be in a critical state because the follow-up survey hasn't been done but when you say a
04:49 safety first approach what would that mean to you closing those 450 as a precaution even
04:55 if they might not contain critical state RAC?
05:00 Well it's not known isn't it? It's that uncertainty Paul. So if you're not sure then it's got
05:04 to be a safety first approach. If there's any doubt whatsoever that a school could,
05:09 is at imminent risk of collapse or partial collapse whether that's a ceiling coming in
05:14 or something along those lines which are the things that have happened so far that are
05:19 known about then it's got to be safety first. There's been massive disruption with education
05:25 throughout COVID obviously and not forgetting that we had some unbelievably last minute
05:30 government announcements around that time as well but it's got to be safety first. At
05:35 the same time these sort of plans should have been in place for this, plans should have
05:40 been in place for this a long time before now, two days, three days before the start
05:45 of term isn't good enough.
05:48 Just to push you on that then, safety first approach does that mean all 450 should shut
05:52 or?
05:53 I don't know enough about those 450 schools Paul and I know you're pushing me and you
05:57 want me to say they should be shut or they shouldn't shut without knowing the full details
06:01 on those schools but if there's any doubt, if there's a chance that those schools could
06:06 collapse or they're at a critical risk of imminent collapse then it's got to be a safety
06:11 first approach and the safety of children and staff has to come first. So those schools,
06:17 if it's 450 schools that we know about where I suspect it's a lot more than that then
06:23 they have to be prioritised and we need to know if those schools are safe to be open
06:27 or not.
06:29 Just looking slightly to the longer term finally, what do you want to happen next because this
06:33 is obviously going to be a situation that's going to take some resolving over quite a
06:37 long period of time isn't it?
06:39 It is, it's going to take a long time and it's going to need serious investments. The
06:45 school's capital budget has been underfunded for well over a decade, they're billions short
06:51 of spending the amount of money that's needed to bring the school estate up to scratch.
06:57 Asbestos exists, it's present in around 90% of all schools so that's going to create a
07:02 huge problem in itself for all those schools where a rack remedial work needs to take place
07:07 but we're looking for a programme of asbestos removal and making schools safe in that way
07:14 alongside this rack situation. So it's going to take a massive investment but it is time,
07:21 it's long overdue time for this to happen. There really shouldn't be anything more important
07:26 than the safety of children learning at school.
07:30 Ian Wilkinson, thank you very much indeed for talking to us.
07:33 You're welcome.