School buildings and capital funding (England)

Changes in capital funding since 2009-10

Overall, between 2009-10 and 2021-22, capital spending declined by 25% in cash terms and 29% after adjusting for inflation.

School Rebuilding Programme

On 29 June 2020 the Government announced what the Education Secretary described in the House as “a 10-year, multi-wave rebuilding programme for schools,” to replace “poor-condition and ageing school buildings, with modern, energy-efficient designs.”

The DfE provides information on the School Rebuilding Programme. The first 100 projects for a major rebuild or refurbishment were announced in two stages in February and July 2021.

A consultation ran from July to October 2021 on prioritising schools for further phases of the programme. The Government published its response on how schools would be prioritised in February 2022. At the same time, the Government published information on how to nominate a school for the next stage of the programme. Nominations closed on 3 March 2022.

The February 2022 announcement stated that up to 300 further schools would be prioritised in 2022-23, with a delivery rate of 50 per year.

Priority School Building Programme

The Priority School Building Programme (PSBP), is a school rebuilding and refurbishment programme implemented by the Coalition Government as a replacement for the previous Building Schools for the Future programme. There have been two phases of PSBP, the first was announced in May 2012 (260 schools) and the second in May 2014 (277 schools)