The 2024 AUDE Survey on RAAC in UK Higher Education Estates

September 2024

In September 2023 during the initial period of focus on RAAC (Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete) in public buildings, AUDE carried out a member survey to establish the situation in our universities. We received responses representing 124 universities (a 67% response rate) which we considered to be representative enough of the whole HE sector estate to create a meaningful picture. We shared analysis of that data with stakeholders including UUK, the Department for Education, AHUA, BUFDG, the Scottish Funding Council and others, and it remains influential in shaping the sector’s understanding of the scale of the problem.

This initial survey was conducted under a promise of anonymity for the institutions taking part. This promise continues to hold, though we would note the single caveat that the Scottish Funding Council asked that Scottish universities voluntarily allow their survey responses to be shared and the majority of them did indeed allow us to do so. We consider AUDE’s promise of anonymity to have been vital in creating such a full overall picture – this survey remains one of the sector’s foundations of our understanding of the situation faced by our universities with regard to RAAC. It is therefore also our intention that this 2024 version of the survey should again be carried out with a promise that information shared with AUDE will be treated as highly confidential and will only be shared on an anonymised basis. Please note that Scottish universities are specifically being asked if they are prepared to waive this anonymity in the single case of us sharing data with the Scottish Funding Council (see Q18). We additionally remind colleagues that AUDE is not subject to FOI requests.

In returning to the issue one year on, our main aims in re-surveying the AUDE membership are:

• To update the national picture to give stakeholders a current understanding of the processes that universities have gone through in the last 12 months, including around surveying, costs and budgets, ongoing disruption and timescales for remedy
• To provide a narrative for the sector of what has happened and still needs to happen to resolve this issue
• To highlight obstacles that remain in a way that can continue to influence action by all key stakeholders
• To create a space in which excellent work, solutions and providers can be highlighted and shared to the benefit of all.

The 2024 AUDE Survey on RAAC in UK Higher Education Estates is launched on Tuesday 24 September and will be open to a single senior representative from each AUDE member institution in the UK (currently 184 institutions) for them to complete a response during the period 24 September to 3 October. We currently plan for anonymised analysis of the data to be available to AUDE members from 10 October. Our senior contact at every member university has been contacted with the survey link and we ask them to arrange for the survey to be filled in within the timescale given of 24 September to 3 October.