Shropshire facing some of the highest costs in the country per pupil to bring schools up to standard

Its report also says there are eight local authority areas where the amount of repairs per pupil is the highest, at more than £2,000 each.

The Shropshire Council area is included in the eight –with the report stating it would cost more than £2,000 for every pupil in Shropshire to restore its school buildings to a good condition.

For Telford & Wrekin the amount is considerably lower, at £1,000 to £1,500 per pupil, along with 75 other local authorities.

The report states: "Condition need varies significantly across different local authorities. In 114 local authorities (75 per cent of the total), average condition need per pupil was between £1,000 and £2,000.

"However, schools in eight local authorities (five per cent) had an average condition need of more than £2,000 per pupil, while in 30 local authorities (20 per cent) the figure was less than £1,000 per pupil.

"Schools in Staffordshire had the highest estimated condition need, at £2,600 per pupil, compared with £530 per pupil in Torbay."

The report says that the Department for Education (DfE) is not sure why different regions are more in need of repair work than others.

The report states: "DfE could not identify statistically significant factors that explain regional variations. It is difficult to find clear causes, as multiple factors – including historical variation in funding, differing building types, and inconsistency in the capability of responsible bodies – will have contributed to the condition of school buildings over time."

A major area of concern highlighted by the report is 572 schools across the country which contain reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC), which could collapse "with little or no warning", according to authors.

The report states: "DfE sees RAAC as the greatest risk to safety across the school estate. RAAC is a lightweight form of concrete that was used in school construction from the 1950s to the mid-1990s.

"School buildings constructed using RAAC have an increased risk of structural failure, which can happen with little or no warning. In late 2018, DfE was notified when a roof containing RAAC suddenly collapsed at a school."

The report adds: "A specialist will assess all schools with suspected RAAC, and DfE has allocated £6 million for 600 assessments by December 2023.

"By May 2023, specialists had completed 196 assessments and confirmed the presence of RAAC in 65 schools, of which 24 required immediate action.

"In May 2023, DfE announced that, where RAAC is present in schools, it would provide funding to ensure that it does not pose an immediate risk."

Other concerns were also outlined, with authors stating: "Separately, by 2019 DfE had identified an estimated 13,800 system-built blocks. It has more concerns about an estimated 3,600 of these because they may be more susceptible to deterioration.

"In September 2022, DfE approved plans for an invasive structural assessment of system-built blocks in 200 schools, but it is yet to procure specialists to carry out the first 100 visits."

The report also concludes that 700,000 pupils are "learning in a school that the responsible body or DfE believes requires major rebuilding or refurbishment".

Gareth Davies, the head of the National Audit Office said: “At present, 700,000 pupils are learning in schools requiring major rebuilding or refurbishment.

"DfE has, since 2021, assessed the risk of school building failure or collapse as critical and very likely, but it has not been able to reduce this risk.

"More widely, it has an ambitious strategy for decarbonising the education estate but no plan for how it will achieve this or how much it is likely to cost.

“DfE is gathering some of the data it needs to effectively target its resources. It must now use this to improve its understanding of where schools are most at risk so it can balance addressing the most urgent risks while investing enough in maintenance, reducing carbon emissions, and climate change adaptation measures to achieve its objectives and secure longer-term value for money.”