Crumbling schools crisis hits Salmond

Published on Saturday 21 November 2009 20:00

THE scale of Scotland's crumbling schools crisis is revealed in a confidential report that says 400 primaries need to be replaced.

The report prepared for Scottish council leaders states that one in five of the country's 2,000 primaries needs to be rebuilt. Yet it predicts only a handful will be upgraded when the SNP government announces the next round of its 1.25 billion school-building programme.

Ministers are shortly expected to identify about 20 primary schools across Scotland that they have prioritised for urgent work – just 5 per cent of the number of schools the report says should be replaced.

The report, obtained by Scotland on Sunday, was discussed at a Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (Cosla) leaders' meeting in Edinburgh last week. It says: "There are around 2,000 primary schools in Scotland, around 400 of which are potential candidates for replacement."

Indecision about which primaries ought to be prioritised for refurbishment is revealed, as are doubts over the supply of cash needed to pay for new schools. "Even if primary schools (to be refurbished] are announced in the next few weeks, this will not come with a clear indication from Scottish Government of when money will be available," it said.

The issues raised in the paper will increase the pressure on Fiona Hyslop, the embattled education secretary, who has been accused of failing to rise to the challenge of delivering new school buildings. The SNP has been struggling to fulfil its manifesto promise to pay for new schools through a new funding mechanism, the Scottish Futures Trust (SFT).

Scotland on Sunday has been campaigning for the upgrading of schools, revealing this year that at least 10,000 pupils are being taught in crumbling and condemned classrooms and that about 70 state schools are beyond repair.

The new report reflects concern among some Cosla members over a "lack of transparency" when the Scottish Government selected which secondary schools should be the beneficiaries of the school-building programme.

Elizabeth Smith, the Conservative education spokeswoman, said: "The scale of the problem is huge. A lot of these buildings date from the Victorian era and that is disturbing.

"Too many schools are past their sell-by dates. We need new school buildings and that has to be based on those with the most need and that process has to be transparent."

Last month the government faced accusations that ministers had favoured the SNP heartlands of the north-east of Scotland when it unveiled the 14 secondary schools to be up-graded.

Last night Labour education spokesman Des McNulty described the situation as "a scandalous neglect of children. There is huge concern in the system that these decisions are being made on political grounds, when they ought to be being taken in the best interests of education in Scotland."

The size of the challenge will again force the spotlight on the role of the Scottish Futures Trust, the body set up at a cost of 23 million to raise money for capital building projects.

The SFT was established as a result of the SNP's ideological objection to public private partnerships, the funding mechanism supported by Labour that brought private money into public projects. The SFT has been criticised as an expensive talking shop that has failed to deliver hard cash. McNulty said: "The SNP government shut off the funding pipeline for schools when they came to power and dithered over the Scottish Futures Trust.

"That has led to a two-and-a-half-year gap when it comes to replacing schools because they have been trying to put this funding mechanism in place."

Ronnie Smith, the general secretary of the EIS teachers' union, said: "We know there is a legacy of years of neglect. It seems to me to be perverse that while the construction industry is in the midst of an economic downturn and there are these huge reservoirs of unemployed construction workers, there are schools needing to be upgraded and refurbished."

A spokesman for Hyslop said Scotland was dealing with decades of lack of investment and claimed the government had lifted 100,000 pupils out of unsatisfactory school accommodation.

The spokesman said three-quarters of schools were now rated as "satisfactory or better".

The spokesman for the minister added: "We pledged to match Labour's promise of 250 schools brick for brick. So far, 236 schools have been completed and we will exceed the 250 mark in the coming months – meeting the pledge more than a year early.

"This compares with just 205 schools completed by the Labour/Liberal coalition during their last four-year term."