As Labour approaches second anniversary in power, their auditors say 50% of England’s schools are ‘unfit for purpose’ while SNP Government has built or refurbished 1 150 schools since 2007 to reach 92% fit for purpose

In the Guardian today:

Half of headteachers say parts of their school are either out of use or unfit for purpose due to leaks, damp, mould, asbestos, ageing boilers and malfunctioning fire doors, according to a new survey by the National Association of Head Teachers(NAHT). Among those who say their schools are suffering, almost three-quarters (73%) say they have toilet blocks that are either closed (8%) or not fit for purpose (65%).

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2026/apr/28/ngland-schools-unfit-leaks-mould-unusable-toilets

How are things in Scotland?

According to the Scottish Government’s School Estate Statistics 2025, 92.0% of schools were rated in good or satisfactory condition (up slightly from 91.7% the previous year). This covers the vast majority of pupils (92.5%). The proportion in poor or bad condition has been declining over time (hundreds fewer than a decade or two ago), thanks to a long-running school building/refurbishment programme. Since 2007–08, over 1,150 major school builds or substantial refurbishments have been completed.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/school-estate-statistics-2025/

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One thought on “As Labour approaches second anniversary in power, their auditors say 50% of England’s schools are ‘unfit for purpose’ while SNP Government has built or refurbished 1 150 schools since 2007 to reach 92% fit for purpose”

  1. To a fair extent the problems in England derive from the policies of both the Tories and the previous Labour government which took schools out of public control in England and gave responsibility to academy trusts. Many of these trusts are multi-school businesses and, although, technically, not for profit, senior staff receive very high remuneration.

    Although schools in Scotland remain under local government control, many authorities were obliged by government to use PPP and successor schemes for rebuilding, refurbishment and maintenance of buildings. Gordon Brown was responsible for requiring Councils to become involved. This saddled many councils with long term contracts with private companies like SERCO, and would have ended up in many cases paying for the cost of refurbishment or rebuilding many times over. The Scottish Government managed to ameliorate many of these contracts and restore buildings to public control in many cases.

    In England Academy Trusts became responsible for such contracts. Although, as in Scotland, they were receiving some central government funding for buildings, the management teams of the trusts paid themselves highly, reduced staffing levels, cut subjects, particularly the arts, from the curriculum, reduced expenditure on school meals, outsourced maintenance, skimped on rebuilding and refurbishing.

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