>Jonathan Slater, who was the top civil servant at the Department for Education from May 2016 to August 2020, tells the Today programme a survey of schools was carried out about 10 years ago and a second was commissioned in his time. These showed the the scale of the rebuilding programme needed.
>According to that, 300 to 400 schools needed to be repaired per year “because of the system the schools were built with was post-war concrete and it was only supposed to live for 30-40 years”.
>When they went to the Treasury, they got funding to rebuild 100 schools per year.
>”It was frustrating when your priority was safety,” he says.
>Slater says the education department saw the benefits of the program but “the challenge was to face the chancellor”.
>In 2021, they wanted to be realistic and asked the government to double the 100 schools to 200.
>”We know 300 to 400 needed, but the actual ask in 2021 was to double the 100 to 200. I thought we’d get it but the actual decision made in 2021 was to halve down from 100 a year to 50 year,” he adds.
>And he reminds the programme that the chancellor then was Rishi Sunak.
You must understand him – who cares about some schools for peasants? And if you halve budget for one thing, you can increase budget for another. You know like the ones maybe your wife’s Infosys wins tender for…
They are going to saddle Labour with this just like everything else. Bring the country to its knees and then pass it all on to the other side.
They are under no illusions that they’re done and are just going to keep kicking the ball down the road.
You can’t make it up!
So we knew about this mess for 30 years, where dozens of education ministers (both parties) kicked the can.
The current tory party commissioned two reports, the first one saying they would need to make urgent repairs to 200 schools per year…they agreed to do 100 because “reasons”
The second report said it’s now more urgent and recommended 400 per year…to which Sunak cut it to 50!
He’s now going to be all over the airlines blaming labour in government or claiming he’s focusing on his five pledges, when once again his mucky little hands are all over another scandal….
I have to say, this whole thing is such a wonderful analogy for the last 13 years of Tory government as a whole. Its giving physical form to the less tangible decay of state functions.
Of course he did – fucking wankers the lot of them. The sooner they’re gone the better.
They can’t prioritise the education needs of the poors can they? They might actually become smart enough to know what is best for them, that will be the end of the Tories.
8 comments
Do we get fine the government £200 a day for missed schooling ?
From [this snippet](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-66701626?ns_mchannel=social&ns_source=twitter&ns_campaign=bbc_live&ns_linkname=64f5799196ad8677126b0afb%26Government%20%27halved%20funding%20for%20rebuilding%20schools%27%262023-09-04T06%3A35%3A59.284Z&ns_fee=0&pinned_post_locator=urn:asset:6bcad8f8-09ac-4597-a85e-d2f3cea93cf6&pinned_post_asset_id=64f5799196ad8677126b0afb&pinned_post_type=share) of the live thread:
>Jonathan Slater, who was the top civil servant at the Department for Education from May 2016 to August 2020, tells the Today programme a survey of schools was carried out about 10 years ago and a second was commissioned in his time. These showed the the scale of the rebuilding programme needed.
>According to that, 300 to 400 schools needed to be repaired per year “because of the system the schools were built with was post-war concrete and it was only supposed to live for 30-40 years”.
>When they went to the Treasury, they got funding to rebuild 100 schools per year.
>”It was frustrating when your priority was safety,” he says.
>Slater says the education department saw the benefits of the program but “the challenge was to face the chancellor”.
>In 2021, they wanted to be realistic and asked the government to double the 100 schools to 200.
>”We know 300 to 400 needed, but the actual ask in 2021 was to double the 100 to 200. I thought we’d get it but the actual decision made in 2021 was to halve down from 100 a year to 50 year,” he adds.
>And he reminds the programme that the chancellor then was Rishi Sunak.
You must understand him – who cares about some schools for peasants? And if you halve budget for one thing, you can increase budget for another. You know like the ones maybe your wife’s Infosys wins tender for…
They are going to saddle Labour with this just like everything else. Bring the country to its knees and then pass it all on to the other side.
They are under no illusions that they’re done and are just going to keep kicking the ball down the road.
You can’t make it up!
So we knew about this mess for 30 years, where dozens of education ministers (both parties) kicked the can.
The current tory party commissioned two reports, the first one saying they would need to make urgent repairs to 200 schools per year…they agreed to do 100 because “reasons”
The second report said it’s now more urgent and recommended 400 per year…to which Sunak cut it to 50!
He’s now going to be all over the airlines blaming labour in government or claiming he’s focusing on his five pledges, when once again his mucky little hands are all over another scandal….
I have to say, this whole thing is such a wonderful analogy for the last 13 years of Tory government as a whole. Its giving physical form to the less tangible decay of state functions.
Of course he did – fucking wankers the lot of them. The sooner they’re gone the better.
They can’t prioritise the education needs of the poors can they? They might actually become smart enough to know what is best for them, that will be the end of the Tories.