Funding in the billions dedicated to school repairs but will it align with net-zero goals?

Yesterday on the 11th of June, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves announced the government’s Spending Review which outlines day-to-day and capital (e.g specific projects like HS2) spending, but what does this mean for schools?

The Department for Education (DfE) saw one of the largest budget increases, including around £2.3bn per year to fix crumbling schools and £2.4bn annually being dedicated to  extend the existing school rebuilding programme (SRP). - This is a big win for Teach the Future as we have been passionately advocating for an increase in investment for school rebuilds and repairs. However, there are questions about the delivery of these programmes, as not only do we need safe and comfortable schools, we need net-zero schools. Our own net-zero costings report estimated the costs to get all schools to net zero by 2030 and the DfE (under previous government) said it needed £2bn a year to meet the 2035 interim legally-binding net-zero targets. Now this money is secured, though inflation will impact this, we need to see a plan to ensure our schools are also net zero. We urge the DfE to take this crucial opportunity to retrofit crumbling schools as well as repairing them, and to align the SRP with the UK’s goal of hitting net zero by 2050, as called we for after the Autumn Budget. Attention also needs to be paid to the wider school estate, not just the classroom, and we’d like to see more money going towards improving outdoors areas to nurture students' relationship with nature and improve their wellbeing. The core school budget also increased, with the expansion of free school meals to children whose families receive universal credit and the introduction of free breakfast clubs in primary schools being the key takeaways.

Also receiving extra funding is the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), with the largest capital spending increase across the government at 2.6%, and a day-to-day spending increase of 0.5%. Secretary of State Ed Miliband recently announced a new initiative for school buildings to be fitted with solar panels, and we look forward to this new funding being put to good use!

Overall, a pretty positive spending review for schools but we need to make sure that these funds are used not only to rebuild and repair classrooms but to retrofit them too. With increased budgets comes increased responsibility; we’ll be watching…