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The last Conservative Government left behind a huge and growing number of crumbling schools, hospitals and military bases, which now urgently need tens of billions of pounds worth of repairs, a new report by the Parliamentary spending watchdog reveals.
The National Audit Office’s investigation, which exposes the sheer scale of problems in the public sector inherited by Keir Starmer’s Government, estimates that there is now a £49 billion maintenance backlog across the UK, which grew by £9 billion under the last 10 years of consecutive Conservative governments.
However, even this figure is likely to be an underestimate because data held by the Cabinet Office is incomplete and out of date.
The biggest backlog, totalling £15.3 billion, is for crumbling military bases run by the Ministry of Defence and largely affects service personnel homes.
The second largest maintenance backlog, totalling £13.8 billion is for academy schools, closely followed by NHS hospitals totalling £13.6 billion.
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Gareth Davies, head of the NAO said: “Allowing large maintenance backlogs to build up at the buildings used to deliver essential public services is a false economy. Government needs better data on the condition of its operational assets and should use it to plan efficient maintenance programmes to deliver better services and value for money”.
The NHS, which only announced yesterday five to ten year delays to replacing crumbling hospitals after Boris Johnson’s promise to build 40 new hospitals was found by the new Government to be largely underfunded. The situation to remedy repairs was made worse by Conservative ministers’ decisions to transfer £4.3 billion from capital spending to revenue to help tackle ballooning waiting lists
The impact on patients using the NHS has been severe. The NAO estimates that 5,400 clinical incidents were caused by property failures. In one worst case scenario, parts of ceilings of Stepping Hill hospital in Stockport collapsed in March 2024, forcing it to evacuate patients and cancel operations.
Other examples include prisons, courts and museums. The report says prisons are beset with ceiling leaks and flooding, which has put prison workshops out of action.
Birmingham’s Victoria magistrates court, the largest in the UK, was hit by fire alarm failures which led to over 4,000 days of court hearings cancelled.
Meanwhile one museum in Manchester which houses a big collection of steam engines has been closed for five years as the building was declared unsafe for visitors. This came when the ministry of culture had underspent its budget by £277 million on repairing museum and gallery buildings.
The report is scathing about how the Cabinet Office’s has kept data on the state of buildings.
It says: “The Government’s data on the condition of its properties and the maintenance backlog are incomplete, out of date, and use inconsistent definitions, which hinders the government’s ability to make effective funding decisions.”
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, Conservative Chair of the Committee of Public Account said today: “With my background in property, I am concerned that for too long schools, hospitals and prisons have been left to crumble. This is putting the safety of those who work in and use these public services at risk. It is alarming that more than 5,000 clinical incidents each year are caused by disrepair across the NHS estate.
“Government’s poor data means it lacks a clear picture of the true state of affairs across the public sector. With the maintenance backlog estimated to have reached at least £49 billion, government must urgently break the cycle of short-term thinking, dither and delay, which only leads to spiralling future costs.”
A Government spokesperson said: “We are taking immediate action to remedy the state of disrepair found across the public estate, which is the result of long-term underinvestment in maintenance and upkeep.
“As part of this, we are already investing billions of pounds to deliver critical repairs and rebuild our public services, to tackle maintenance backlogs and improve our hospitals, schools and prisons as we deliver on the Plan for Change.”