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Hundreds of schools in Wales have lists of overdue maintenance works adding up to £543m. Of the 32 schools in the Welsh education minister's patch 31 need repairs, data has shown.

Last November Plaid Cymru MS Cefin Campbell wrote to Wales' education minister Lynne Neagle asking for the total and urgent maintenance backlog for school buildings in Wales. He said it was "shocking" the Welsh Government didn't hold that figure. But he said given that the following month the Welsh Government announced £10m in additional funding for maintenance "I assume you are now able to answer my original question?" In a session of the Senedd in February Ms Neagle said the "information on repairs is, obviously, held at a local authority level".

Mr Campbell said: "If the Welsh Government still don't know beyond the anecdotal or even collect this information it certainly raises questions of how we can be confident that public funds from the Welsh Government are being used in the most effective way, especially if you don't know the size or the scale of the problem." You can see more from their exchange here.

Separately a survey by teachers' union NASUWT found one in three teachers rate the conditions of their buildings as very poor and the top areas of concern remained the same: extreme temperatures, leaking rooms, lack of ventilation, and lack of welfare facilities. That survey also found 44% of respondents said the condition of their school building has deteriorated or greatly deteriorated over the past three years.

Mr Campbell's party then submitted freedom of information requests to each of Wales' 22 councils asking for the total maintenance backlog, and how much of that was urgent, as well as how many schools were waiting for repairs. Read the biggest stories in Wales first by signing up to our daily newsletter here.

It found at least 320 schools – almost a quarter of schools in Wales – have a total urgent maintenance backlog of £93.8m. Mr Campbell told Ms Neagle that 31 of the 32 schools in her constituency of Torfaen require urgent maintenance totalling £3.7m. He asked if she was proud of that record to which she responded: "The requests coincide with a NASUWT survey showed that 48% of teachers in Wales believed that the condition of their school buildings has ‘deteriorated or greatly deteriorated’ over the last three years."

Plaid Cymru wants a detailed national survey to properly assess the condition of school buildings in Wales to be carried out. Mr Campbell, who speaks on education for the party, said: "School buildings are a crucial part of our education system – they are buildings that should provide an environment that is safe for teachers and learners. A safe place to learn is the bare minimum a government should be offering our future generation and Labour are failing at this and are letting our students down.

"The fact that all bar one of the schools in the cabinet secretary’s own constituency need urgent maintenance is frankly incredulous. It truly represents the scale of Labour’s negligence when it comes to providing a learning environment where our learners and teachers can thrive."

The responses broken down by council area: