So on this Friday the 13th I’m going to do something I’ve not done so far – go back to a previous rethink topic and see if the last one can provide and further options.
When we wrapped up Let’s Rethink Education, we didn’t shy away from the scale of the challenge.
We were clear that if we genuinely wanted an education system that could deliver outcomes closer to private school standards for everyone, the numbers were uncomfortable.
We weren’t talking about tweaks.
We were talking about something closer to £100–150bn a year once fully delivered.
And we were also honest about something else.
Before teaching quality, class sizes, or support services even come into play, there’s a huge problem sitting underneath it all.
The education estate.
What we already agreed last time
In Let’s Rethink Education, we spent a lot of time circling the same reality:
Schools aren’t struggling because teachers don’t care.
They aren’t struggling because leaders don’t understand their communities.
They’re struggling because:
- buildings are ageing or failing
- maintenance is reactive
- capacity doesn’t line up with population
- capital funding arrives late, short-term, and unpredictably
- planning responsibility is fragmented
We estimated that £50–70bn would be needed just to stabilise and modernise the education estate.
Not to transform education.
Just to make the foundations solid.
At the time, we framed this mainly as a funding problem.
The housing work has nudged a slightly different question into view.
Is this a governance problem before it’s a money problem?
Housing didn’t just show us what happens when there isn’t enough supply.
It showed us what happens when long-term systems are managed on short political cycles.
Education lives in that same tension already.
Funding settlements change.
Capital pots come and go.
Accountability frameworks shift.
Responsibilities are split across departments, councils, trusts, and agencies.
And no one is really responsible for the whole picture over decades.
Which raises a more basic question than “how much should we spend?”:
Who would we actually trust to plan, manage, and steward a £50–70bn education estate programme over the long term?
Could we use bonds like we did for housing?
It would be nice if we could.
But this is where the analogy breaks — and it matters that we say it out loud.
Housing works with bonds because it has an in-built revenue stream.
Rent exists.
Returns can be paid from something real.
Education doesn’t have that.
There’s no direct revenue stream coming back from classrooms that could service bond returns in the same way.
So this isn’t about trying to financialise education.
And it isn’t about forcing a mechanism where it doesn’t belong.
What housing does offer is guidance on structure, not funding instruments.
So what does translate?
Not bonds.
But separation of roles.
Imagine an arms-length education body whose job is limited and clear:
- managing and maintaining the education estate
- planning capacity against demographics
- coordinating rebuilds, expansions, and closures
- operating on 10–15 year horizons
Not setting curriculum.
Not inspecting schools.
Not replacing ministers.
Just doing the long-term, technical, unglamorous work that:
- schools can’t do themselves
- and short political cycles are bad at sustaining
Politics would still:
- decide overall spending levels
- set national priorities
- define what the system is for
But delivery would be more stable, not depoliticised.
Why start with infrastructure?
Because it’s the least controversial place to begin.
Moving estate oversight and planning into an arms-length body:
- doesn’t touch classroom autonomy
- doesn’t redesign pedagogy
- doesn’t demand immediate cultural change
It simply creates:
- predictability
- coordination
- and a credible long-term plan
And without that, even very large sums of money tend to leak away inefficiently.
This is exactly the lesson housing forced into the open.
So what did housing actually teach us?
Not how to fund education.
But this:
Long-term systems break when we pretend they can be governed short-term.
Housing made the time problem visible because the consequences became impossible to ignore.
Education has been living with the same problem quietly for years.
The buildings just crack more slowly.
So where does that leave us?
Not with a finished solution.
But with a clearer ordering.
Before we argue about:
- £100–150bn a year
- tax mechanisms
- who pays what
We need a system that can:
- plan over decades
- absorb investment sensibly
- and stop being thrown off course every few years
Housing didn’t give us the answer.
But it did help us see which question needs answering first.
And that’s a useful place to pause — before we move on to health, where the stakes and sensitivities only get higher.
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