Eye-watering sum each person in UK will have to pay to fix schools and hospitals

A study by the National Audit Office (NAO) has recovered it volition outgo astir £50billion to hole a monolithic backlog of repairs to nationalist buildings similar hospitals, prisons and schools

Crumbling schools, hospitals and prisons volition outgo astir £50billion to enactment right, a damning study has found.

Years of neglect mean taxpayers look rocketing bills for important repairs, the National Audit Office(NAO) warns. It recovered determination person been 5,400 cases wherever mediocre prime buildings person impacted patients since 2019.

The watchdog said Chancellor Rachel Reeves indispensable tackle the attraction backlog successful the Government's adjacent spending review, and hold semipermanent backing to repair crumbling buildings Ministers were warned that radical moving successful affected buildings are being enactment astatine risk.

It volition outgo much than £10billion to repair schools, and a akin sum for NHS and Ministry of Defence properties, numbercrunchers estimate. The repairs would outgo each idiosyncratic successful the UK £710, analysts found.

NAO caput Gareth Davies said: "Allowing ample attraction backlogs to physique up astatine the buildings utilized to present indispensable nationalist services is simply a mendacious economy. Government needs amended information connected the information of its operational assets and should usage it to program businesslike attraction programmes to present amended services and worth for money."

The Government past nighttime insisted it was taking "immediate action" to code the issues caused by "long-term underinvestment". The watchdog warned that information connected Government-owned buildings is "incomplete, retired of dates" - meaning that the existent outgo of repairs could beryllium adjacent higher.

The NAO said determination are 136,844 buildings owned by cardinal Government, worthy astir £158billion. It outgo £22billion to run these properties successful 2020-21.

Tory MP Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, who chairs the Commons' Public Accounts Committee, said the crumbling property is "putting the information of those who enactment successful and usage these nationalist services astatine risk". He added: "It is alarming that much than 5,000 objective incidents each twelvemonth are caused by disrepair crossed the NHS estate.

"Government's mediocre information means it lacks a wide representation of the existent authorities of affairs crossed the nationalist sector. With the attraction backlog estimated to person reached astatine slightest £49 billion, Government indispensable urgently interruption the rhythm of short-term thinking, dither and delay, which lone leads to spiralling aboriginal costs."

A Government spokesperson said: "We are taking contiguous enactment to remedy the authorities of disrepair recovered crossed the nationalist estate, which is the effect of semipermanent underinvestment successful attraction and upkeep.

"As portion of this, we are already investing billions of pounds to present captious repairs and rebuild our nationalist services, to tackle attraction backlogs and amended our hospitals, schools and prisons arsenic we present connected the program for change."