The school buildings safety scandal has exposed the shaky foundations of a floundering government

Editorial: Ministers can’t be blamed for crumbling concrete but, as they’ve known it posed a potential risk in schools since 2018, they are open to charges of negligence, complacency and incompetence

Prometheus (Dave Brown)

One of the many extraordinary aspects of the emerging school buildings scandal is that even now, no one – least of all worried parents – is certain which schools are affected, or how many of them are. Nor do they know the precise nature of the risks.

We do know that 24 schools in England have been told by the Department for Education to close; some 104 were already partly closed; and now, a further 50 or so are to have some buildings put out of use. This, to provide some perspective, is out of 24,000 schools in total. But the beleaguered schools minister, Nick Gibb, admits that he doesn’t actually know what the final number will be, or the extent of the consequent disruption to learning, or the cost of remedial work (beyond the fact that it is likely to run into billions).