Sheffield City Council fear that they will be financially penalised for taking the initiative in prioritising children’s safety and repairing the RAAC concrete in schools before the government commits to reimbursing costs.
The Council reacted quickly to the Department of Education’s announcement of the risks of RAAC and spent £620,000 to replace the concrete on Abbey Lane Primary’s roof in July.
A couple of months later, the Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, promised to spend what it takes to remove the material.
However, Sheffield Council now fears that they might not be reimbursed, after using the money from the £3.5 million for capital projects they receive from the Department of Education each year.
Refurbishing and building work on other schools has been delayed as a result.
A spokesman for the council said: “We asked the DfE for retrospective funding, but at this stage, there are no retrospective reimbursements for affected schools where RAAC has been removed or replaced and paid for out of existing condition funding.
“If we don’t receive reimbursement…we will have been financially penalised for acting at an early stage. We put our children’s safety first before it became a critical national issue.”
Reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) is a lightweight material that is a cheaper alternative to standard concrete, which was used between the 1950s and the 1990s.
More than 100 schools across England have been told to shut buildings that contain RAAC, unless they implement safety measures, such as scaffolding.
Many pupils had already lost a minimum of six months of school because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and many other students were affected by further school closures because of the concrete.