A senior DfE official has admitted that school condition data used by ministers to inform decisions on funding for repairs was “incomplete”. Lindsay Harris acknowledged the gaps in the government’s condition data collection (CDC) programme as he outlined plans for a “data and digital transformation” of how estates information is gathered. Speaking at the education estates conference last month, Harris said: “The CDC programme was a visual survey – it didn’t look at the structures of buildings. It was incomplete in that sense. “[With] the future estate data collection, which we’re working on developing at the moment, we’re seeing this as a wider data collection – it won’t just be a repeat of the CDC.” CDC checks – conducted between 2017 and 2019 – rated every school’s fixtures and fittings from A to D to inform future funding allocations. The results were used by the government to help decide which of the first 100 projects would make the cut for the school rebuilding programme (SRP). The second round of CDC between 2021 and 2026 will help to decide which schools make the cut for the next round in cases where they haven’t provided additional evidence. Programme criticised Three years ago Wendy Meikle, Stockport council’s then cabinet member for education, branded the programme “inaccurate and flawed”. Academy funding consultant Tim Warneford also called them “very fast, drive-by surveys” that produced impenetrable reports. Harris said the new collection – dubbed a “data and digital transformation” – will include “information on structural issues, information about safety issues, information about sustainability and resilience of the buildings”. Revealed in the DfE’s education estates strategy earlier this year, it will involve the department working with schools to introduce a “two-way” system of sharing condition information “to build a single shared understanding of estates data”. Education estates strategy to replace CIF and create surplus land framework Harris was responding to a question from Louise Cooper, the chief operating officer of the BRIT School in London, who said she has “had two instances in the last two years” where CDC was shown not to be “robust”. The school had a “collapsed roof that took a changing room out of action for 15 months” and a “building that really needs to be closed”. BRIT has applied for the next round of the school rebuilding programme, but Cooper noted “the CDC survey data did not show that those [parts of the school] were in the state they were in”. It is “embarking on a masterplan project” as it “couldn’t rely on that survey”. Separate condition surveys Harris stressed the rebuilding programme did not “just rely on the CDC” and asked “responsible bodies to put forward nominations” with separate condition surveys. “Where we want to move to is where we don’t have to ask for nominations, we don’t have to invite bids, because we have a data collection that is comprehensive and gives us sufficient information to not need to ask you to keep making submissions.” Pilots of the new system – involving trusts, councils and dioceses – began this year. Its rollout is planned for next autumn. Schools Week previously revealed that officials will also trial a project in which empty classroom blocks in line to be torn down are visited by surveyors on the eves of their demolition. Called innovate UK, the 12-month pilot is due to begin next summer and expected to cost £120,000. Documents published last month show it is consulting companies on “scalable and cost-effective digital tools and methodologies” to capture this information and “analyse it to identify trends in defects across different construction types and structural arrangements in the education estate”.