The National Audit Office (NAO) has released new figures which show the cost of addressing backlog maintenance in government-owned buildings stands at more than £49bn – with schools particularly affected by ongoing underinvestment.

And, the report claims, this figure could be much greater as poor government data means the true cost cannot be confirmed.

The 480-page cross-government publication, entitled Maintaining public service facilities, found the estimated backlog maintenance bill for the Department for Education (DfE) was in excess of £13.8bn, equal to that of the Department of Health and Social Care.

Having good-quality property that is properly maintained, utilised, and adaptable to future needs is fundamental to delivering public services

The education sector is one of the Government’s most-valuable property portfolios, making up 34% of the total. However, it is also responsible for 13% of the total backlog maintenance challenge.

The estimated backlog maintenance figure is based on the DfE’s estimate of schools’ total condition need, defined as the modelled cost of the remedial work to repair or replace all defective elements in the school estate.

The NAO report converts this figure to 2023-24 prices and follows the Office of Government Property (OGP) in treating condition need as indicative of the school backlog.

However, the DfE’s estimate is based on data collected between 2017-2019 and does not account for any subsequent investment to improve schools or deterioration of their condition.

A new data collection exercise is due to complete in 2026.

The report claims the poor condition of the education estate is due to a number of factors:

• Historic underinvestment
• Cost increases and inflationary pressures
• Many aged buildings which are reaching the end of their intended operational life at the same time

And it makes a number of recommendations for addressing the crisis, including a more-long-term approach to capital funding and improved data collection.

It states: “Having good-quality property that is properly maintained, utilised, and adaptable to future needs is fundamental to delivering public services.

“However, the condition of government property has declined over the last decade.

“The Government will need to consider the optimal way to manage its assets alongside its long-term investment plans, in addition to the cost of ongoing maintenance, to bring property condition to a satisfactory level.

“The scale of the challenge will become intractable unless the OGP urgently addresses strategic planning gaps across government, so it, and departments, can understand what the full picture of maintenance requirements is across government, ahead of the next, and subsequent, spending review periods.

“In the short term, this will allow the most-urgent works to be prioritised and risks to be understood.

The Government will need to consider the optimal way to manage its assets alongside its long-term investment plans, in addition to the cost of ongoing maintenance, to bring property condition to a satisfactory level

“In the medium to long term, it will allow for the Government to take a more-strategic approach to property maintenance and management, working towards futureproofing the estate to make it fit for purpose and to represent the best value for money.”

Number crunching

The report reveals that the funding awarded to government departments and arm’s-length bodies by the Government for maintenance work has often been significantly lower than the amounts they estimated they need.

For example, the DfE in its Spending Review 2020 case, recommended £5.3bn a year as the capital funding required to maintain schools and mitigate the most-serious risks of building failure once it had expanded its School Rebuilding Programme.

Since it would take time to achieve this expansion, DfE requested an average of £4bn a year for 2021-2025.

But HM Treasury allocated an average of £3.1bn a year.

“Given wider pressures on public spending, it is important for departments to make effective decisions on prioritisation,” says the report.

“This involves deciding which works to carry out and which to forgo or postpone; whether to maintain existing properties, refurbish, or build new ones; and whether to divert funds allocated to maintenance to other areas of spending.”

Recommendations for improvements laid out in the report cover four main areas:

Data: Mandating a common set of property condition ratings, delivering a programme of data maturity to gather information on all government property including

• A standardised definition of the maintenance backlog used across government to estimate the total backlog
• Maintenance backlog information published annually to improve transparency

Funding: Providing guidance and tools to support departments’ Spending Review bids for maintenance funding

• HM Treasury to tackle the backlog through the next spending review
• Assessments of the benefits of new builds versus maintaining existing properties in business cases for new builds

Capability: Working to increase the professional accreditation rate of property practitioners, offering training and opportunities for knowledge sharing

• Office of Government Property to use data on the property profession to make recommendations to departments about addressing skills gaps in property roles
• Departments to include workable property workforce plans in their strategic workforce plan

Planning: Working with departments to raise the profile of property maintenance

• Long-term plans for departments’ capital needs
• Arm’s-length bodies to produce strategic asset management plans or be included in departmental plans