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8.10 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mr. Robin Squire): The hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) has raised an important issue. As he said, this is the second occasion on which I have heard his arguments for Birley Spa school and others. Last time, of course, responsibility for capital expenditure came within my remit. This time, my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) is the responsible Minister. I undertake to draw the hon. Gentleman's comments to my hon. Friend at the end of the debate. They will receive her full attention.
The Government are concerned that schools should offer their pupils a good and safe learning environment. The statutory duty to ensure that school buildings are safe lies with school governors and local education authorities. The hon. Gentleman knows that. We share a similar background as former leaders of local authorities. To help governors and LEAs discharge the statutory duty effectively, my Department provides advice to local authorities and school governors to alert them to building defects of potentially national significance. The procedure is intended to act as an early-warning system so that authorities can plan accordingly.
In essence, my Department issues a so-called defects letter to all authorities whenever news of a particular building problem could usefully be broadcast. Usually one authority will spearhead the fault-finding process and let the Department know. The scheme has proved so useful that a pack of defects letters is now included in the
"welcome pack" for schools entering the grant-maintained sector. When appropriate, the Department will also commission research into the defect, usually through the Building Research Establishment, and disseminate the findings to local authorities.
As the hon. Gentleman said, it was the Sheffield LEA which informed us that it had identified problems with some 1950s Derwent timber framed schools. They were manufactured by Vic Hallam plc in the 1950s and 1960s. The Derwent system comprises permanent buildings of one or two storeys, mainly based on a timber post and plywood box beam framing construction. The buildings are braced by tongue-and-groove roof boards and framed external wall panels. Later forms of the system used different types of cladding such as brick work and tile hanging, although the same principle of structure remained.
As the hon. Gentleman knows, Sheffield LEA reported to my Department that it had found deterioration in the external walls and in certain internal structural members of Derwent buildings. Other common faults were rotting of the timber columns between window sill and floor level, rotting of timber internal columns between floor level and lower ceiling level at the point at which a change of room height occurred and rotting of external columns over their entire height, when adjacent to rainwater outlets, together with other examples of junctions between plywood beams and timber posts that were exposed to water leaks.
Sheffield alerted us to the problem in 1987. Later that year, the Department issued a defects letter to LEAs informing them that further investigations were being carried out by the authority. The Department stressed the importance of carrying out adequate surveys to determine individual building needs.
The Department commissioned some research into the system and sent a copy of the report to LEAs in March 1988. Principally, the report made recommendations for the investigation of Derwent system buildings, but also emphasised the importance of checking all buildings with a similar construction. The Department invited authorities to advise it of any further cases that they identified. There has been only a limited response. I am advised that we are aware of only between 10 and 15 cases. There are, of course, other timber-framed buildings that have not necessarily been specifically identified as Derwent constructions. We are well aware of the difficulties in Sheffield schools, to which the hon. Gentleman has diligently drawn to our attention in the past.
I have already said that schools must offer a good and safe environment for their pupils. We are committed to improving the condition of school buildings. To that end, substantial capital resources have been provided in recent years to enable local education authorities and school governors to improve their building stock. We estimate that, between 1990-91 and 1993-94, LEAs spent about
£2.7 billion on their schools.
Generally, capital sums allocated by my Department are not tied to specific projects. Local authorities are given permission to borrow up to a certain level to fund capital programmes for all their services, including education. This borrowing limit--it is called the basic credit approval--is made up of the sum of the annual capital guidelines for different services that are issued to the authority net of any anticipated receipts.
Ultimately, therefore, it is up to LEAs to decide their own priorities, both between services and projects within services. Nor is the basic credit approval, which is issued by the Department of the Environment, the upper limit on authorities' capital spending. Authorities can invest their own capital receipts as they see fit, and they can use funds from their revenue budgets for capital purposes if they wish. Recent relaxations to local authority capital controls--in particular, a reduction in the rate of set-aside required for debt redemption--will help LEAs to maximise the use to which they can put capital assets.
I acknowledge, however, that in recent years tight public expenditure survey settlements have meant that allocations available for improvement or replacement work have not been as high as some local authorities might have wished. It is worth explaining, therefore, that the criteria for allocating capital resources were agreed with the local authority associations over 10 years ago.
Priority in the allocation of schools' annual capital guidelines is first given to commitments arising from projects started in previous years. That is fairly obvious. After that comes the provision of new school places in areas of population growth, basic need, and exceptional basic need, which is a sub-category of basic need. Exceptional basic need essentially covers cases where a surveyor has condemned teaching places or described them as unsafe or structurally unsound. Exceptional basic need cover is given only where repair is either impracticable or actually more expensive than replacement. Such instances are usually emergency cases, but in the light of the hon. Gentleman's comments I confirm to him sincerely that we shall examine extremely carefully any evidence which he or the LEA may forward
to my Department that may show that in the school or schools that he mentioned the problem comes under the qualifications of exceptional basic need.
Mr. Betts:
The Minister has said that exceptional basic need covers a school that cannot be repaired or where repair becomes more expensive than replacement. Does the Minister accept that account should be taken of repairs that are immediately necessary and repairs that will continue to be necessary over a period of, for example, five or 10 years? The cost of new buildings should be weighed against repairing existing structures if repair work will have to be continued for five or 10 years.
Mr. Squire:
I cannot deny that there was a strong strain of common sense in what the hon. Gentleman said. I am happy to revisit the priorities that were established--I may well have made that clear to him in a previous responsibility--particularly in the light of the points that he is making. At the present time, I can reiterate only what the priority was. He will appreciate that, because there are invariably more bids than there is funding available, it would require broad agreement across local authorities, and I would be happy to receive that. There may be opportunity for local authorities to pursue that with me or my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham.
The other priority category covers the implementation of cost-effective schemes to remove surplus school cases, and the hon. Gentleman is aware of their impact. We also make allowance for liabilities for work at voluntary aided schools and for approved capital work in special education. The remaining resources are then distributed by a formula to contribute towards the cost of all other capital-related work at schools. The latter category may include cases that are not exceptional basic need but where replacement is considered to be the most sensible option. Obviously, local education authorities are free to include Derwent buildings in annual capital bids for exceptional basic need cover if they think that a case meets the definition.
Alternatively, LEAs are free to bid at any time for a supplementary credit approval from the Department's limited capital reserve. There are always many competing bids for the resources and only the most urgent and deserving bids are successful. These can sometimes include cases that are not exceptional basic need but that nevertheless appear urgent. We also give priority to any supplementary credit approval bids, involving private sector investment in line with the principles of the private finance initiative.
Very substantial sums have been made available for capital work in schools--more than £600 million this year. Nevertheless, each year, we have to make tough discussions about what to include in our list of successful projects. The hon. Gentleman has schools with Derwent buildings in his constituency, and he highlighted in particular, but not exclusively, Birley Spa. When we met to discuss this issue last year, I explained that a bid for exceptional basic need could be given only where repair would be more expensive than replacement. Surplus provision in the area was also a factor. The LEA has since applied for funding under a supplementary credit approval, which was not successful in the most recent round because of competing bids against very limited resources.
We have made careful note of the hon. Gentleman's arguments on behalf of those schools. I can repeat only that the crucial factor is the availability of resources in each financial year and, of course, the priority criteria, to which I referred. Exceptional basic need is, as its name implies, an exceptional category, essentially for the replacement of condemned buildings.
As I said at the outset, this is the second occasion on which I have discussed this issue with the hon. Gentleman--in rather grander surroundings than our first meeting. On each occasion, I have been impressed by the sincerity and strength of his arguments, and in particular his commitment to Birley Spa school. I shall take that message back to my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham and ask her carefully to consider the points that he has made tonight when making her decisions for capital allocations in future.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at twenty-three minutes past Eight o'clock.
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