Rectifying RAAC: How's it progressing?

In 2023, just before the start of the new school year, it was declared that all spaces with reinforced autoclave aerated concrete (RAAC) must be closed, following three separate roof collapses. Why then, 18 months later, has it been revealed that 90 per cent of schools with RAAC are yet to have it removed? Meghan Shaw explores the issue

Reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) is a lightweight, porous concrete that was popular in construction from the 1950s until the mid-1990s, particularly in public sector buildings like schools, hospitals, and prisons.     

A cheaper alternative to standard concrete, it is also less durable and has a lifespan of around 30 years, because its ‘bubbly’ structure makes it more susceptible to moisture. It is predominantly found as precast panels in flat roofs, and occasionally in floors and walls.

RAAC looks like concrete but can be identified by appearing as panels or planks, rather than individual concrete blocks, and these panels have a distinct chamfer along their edge. They are incredibly soft and chip away under the pressure of something as small as a screwdriver or a nail, and can bow or deflect easily under pressure. Common manufacturers of RAAC panels are Siporex, Durox, Celcon, Hebel and Ytong.

Should you suspect RAAC to be present in an education building, assistance should be sought from an appropriately qualified building surveyor or structural engineer with experience of RAAC, and, should it be confirmed, a school must then inform the DfE via the DfE Capital Portal. Prior to further investigation, schools will need to gather and supply relevant information about their buildings and list all spaces where additional measures will be required to enable the surveyors to see the surfaces clearly.

Why has RAAC only recently become an issue?

The risks of using RAAC in place of traditional concrete structures have been known since 1961, with concerns first raised in 1996 by the Building Research Establishment, which had discovered “cracking” and “corrosion” in RAAC roofing panels, yet denied RAAC posed a safety hazard to the public. The report did not lead to any legislation or reform to remove RAAC from buildings or to move children out from under them.

The problem with RAAC in schools coincided with falling government expenditure within E F the education sector, further exacerbating the issue. Spending on education infrastructure reached its peak in 2010, and Gordon Brown’s government ran an ambitious Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme, which aimed to rebuild or renovate every secondary school in England, but was axed in 2010 by the coalition government. Capital spending for education fell from around £10 billion in 2009-11 down to about £4.3 billion in 2013-14.

RAAC seems to reflect a wider problem with capital underfunding in the education sector, with a Guardian investigation in 2019 revealing that one in six schools in England required urgent repairs. In 2023, research by the BBC revealed that seventeen of the schools on the list of schools affected with RAAC were due to be reconstructed over two decades earlier, yet were cancelled following the Conservative scrapping of the Labour BSF scheme.

The call to action

Concerns about RAAC in school buildings arose in 2017, when the Standing Committee on Structural Safety was asked to investigate RAAC after a school roof collapsed. A year later, part of the roof above the staff room at Singlewell Primary School in Kent collapsed without warning, which was also linked to RAAC. Kent Council subsequently wrote to other local authorities warning them to check for RAAC in their schools.

There seemed little urgency to define the situation as critical, with the COVID-19 pandemic also likely hampering progress. In February 2021, the DfE published a guide on how to identify, assess, and manage RAAC in educational buildings, and the following year asked academy trusts and councils to complete a questionnaire about RAAC in their schools. In September 2022, the DfE sent professional surveyors to visit schools to assess the presence of RAAC, and then later mentioned there was “a risk of collapse of one or more blocks in some schools” in their annual report.

In 2023, following pressure from unions and a three failed RAAC structures, one of which being a school, the government finally announced that buildings containing RAAC should be vacated just several days before schools were set to reopen for the new term.  

It was announced that there were 156 educational settings in England containing RAAC, with the list updated to 237 schools and colleges in October 2024.    

In August 2023, more than 100 school buildings across England were ordered to be closed while safety arrangements were made, with some pupils learning remotely, some relocated to other schools, and others forced to learn in temporary huts.

In April 2024, the DfE published extensive guidance for responsible bodies and educational institutions that had RAAC confirmed in their buildings, clarifying that the DfE will provide funding for necessary mitigation networks, as well as how best to support students who have had their learning interrupted by RAAC in school buildings. A new School Rebuilding Programme (SRP) was announced in 2020, and each school with RAAC was assigned a caseworker.

Where are we now with RAAC?

Progress, overall, has been slow, with little direction and concrete roadmaps. Although the Department for Health and Social Care earmarked £685 million investment for mitigating RAAC in hospitals until the end of 2025 in a wider move to erase RAAC from the entire NHS estate by 2035, the DfE is yet to have set out any distinct targets apart from identifying RAAC, moving children out from under it, and then eradicating it.

In 2020, the government launched its School Rebuilding Programme (SRP), which is the only central government initiative to rebuild schools. The DfE, in the 2020 Spending Review asked for £7 billion in capital funding to build 200 schools a year, though the Treasury agreed to fund a 10-year project to rebuild 50 schools per year, at an average cost of £1.3 billion each year.

By March 2023, SRP had awarded 24 projects, which was well below its forecast of 83, with only one project completed compared with its forecast of four. By 2024, all places on the programme were taken, with the final 100 spaces going to schools with identified RAAC.

In June 2023, the National Audit Office (NAO) reported that the DfE had calculated it needed about £5.3 billion each year from 2021-2025 to ensure school buildings were properly maintained, following a survey on the condition of school buildings. Instead, the DfE requested £4 billion and received £3.1 billion each year from the Treasury. This meant that actual funding allocations from the government have been more than 40 per cent below government-assessed levels of need.

The Liberal Democrats have recently revealed that RAAC still remains in 90 per cent of schools, with the government admitting that it may take up to five years to mitigate the issue. Only 30 schools out of the total 237 with confirmed RAAC have had it removed, meaning 207 schools still contain this dangerous material. 18 months since the forced closure of RAAC spaces, this is far from progress. Munira Wilson MP, the Liberal Democrats education spokesperson, explained: “Thousands of children are studying in dangerous schools or inadequate temporary buildings, with the timeline for repair stretching on for years. This generation of young people saw unprecedented disruption to their education under COVID, so that 90 per cent of schools are yet to see action to remove RAAC is deeply concerning.”

The future of mitigating RAAC:

Recent developments, such as the start of a new government and its Autumn Budget, give hope that a clearer, target-based solution against RAAC in the education sector will be put in place, backed with adequate funding to meet these goals.

Chancellor Rachel Reeve’s Autumn Budget announced that the DfE settlement would increase by £11.2 billion from 2023-24 levels by 2025-26, a real terms increase of 3.5 per cent. £6.7 billion of this will be for capital spending, which is set to increase by 19 per cent from the previous year. Of this capital budget, £1.4 billion is set to boost the SRP, an uplift of £550 million, with the Chancellor also confirming plans for 100 SRP projects to start delivery across England next year, meaning that vital work to remove RAAC from school buildings will finally start to pick up speed. This gives much-needed reaffirmation that the government is still committed to rebuilding 518 schools through the programme, and is committed to ensuring no child is unsafe while in a school building. A further £2.1 billion will also go towards improving school maintenance next year, up by £300 million, which should keep existing school estates in much better condition, picking up any issues early on rather than waiting until they are urgent problems.

For clearer direction and RAAC-specific funding or targets, we will likely need to wait until the government’s Spending Review this coming spring. The secretary of state for education, Bridget Phillipson, has said that she “will never accept that a child should learn in a crumbling classroom,” so there is good faith that progress to eradicate RAAC from the school estate will start to pick up.