Maintenance of Schools Repair Backlog

Please provide the following information regarding the maintenance of schools maintained by Lincolnshire County Council:



(1) The number of schools currently identified as having an outstanding maintenance or repair backlog.



(2) The total estimated cost of this combined maintenance and repair backlog.



(3) The total amount spent by the council in the last two financial years (2023/24 and 2024/25) on temporary safety measures at school sites (specifically including scaffolding hire, temporary propping, or temporary fencing).



(4) If the specific cost for temporary measures is not held as a separate line item, please provide the total expenditure on "Urgent/Emergency Safety Works" for the same period.

I can confirm that the information requested is held by Lincolnshire County Council. I have detailed below the information that is being released to you. 

1.Lincolnshire County Council (LCC) has circa 160 maintained schools, all of which will have an element of maintenance or repair required as this can include known repairs that will be recorded on the schools’ condition survey or reactive repairs that could be as a result of something not working/breaking. Items on the condition survey will be categorised as those requiring immediate attention (P1), works required within 2 years (priority 2), works required 3-5 years (priority 3) and works required from 5 years onwards (P4). This enables the Council to have a forward plan of works that are required and helps schools budget for those they are responsible for. Any works under a value of £10,000 is the responsibility of the school to fund.

2. It is not possible to quantify this as LCC would only hold the data from the condition surveys and this data is reliant on schools informing us that they have completed items listed on the condition survey, which is not always the case.

The condition surveys allow us to draft a programme of planned repair works. The programme aims to address all works classed as priority 1 work (those requiring immediate work).   P1 works currently outstanding/scheduled currently equate to approx £5M however some of those works will be addressed in the upcoming financial year and some are works that are the responsibility of the school.

In addition, all schools will have outstanding reactive maintenance as this can include items that are identified as part of maintenance activities such as fire alarm, boiler maintenance etc but also issues such as broken door handles and broken toilets. If you would like to provide more information regarding which repairs and maintenance activities you wish to be excluded, then it may be possible to provide more information.

3. LCC would not be able to provide this information without significant officer time expected to exceed 16hrs.  If this were to be answered, we would require further clarity on what should be classed as temporary safety works. To collate this would take significant officer time to review as lots of reactive works include the use of scaffolding, temp fencing etc, which is not separately recorded so would require a review of every item in the programme.

4. Our financial reporting does not capture this level of spend.