Executive to agree plan to buy lame duck PFI college

Published on Saturday 16 December 2006 00:11

THE Scottish Executive is set to approve a £25 million buy-out of a troubled college, raising further questions over the suitability of private finance deals.

Funding officials have recommended that West Lothian College should be brought into public ownership because it cannot meet the payments on its Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contract.

The college became only the second in the UK to be built under a PFI deal five years ago, but has failed to attract the amount of students it had hoped.

Last year, a report by the Scottish Parliament's audit committee warned that the college faced an 11 million budget shortfall as it tried to meet its payments over the next 20 years.

Nicol Stephen, the lifelong learning minister, yesterday said he was concerned that the PFI contract "may not represent best value to the public purse".

The Scottish Funding Council will consider the college's future when it meets next month, but is expected to recommend that the college be brought into public ownership. Ministers have pledged to abide by any decision the council makes.

Opposition parties said the problems faced by West Lothian College proved that PFI, and its successor the Public Private Partnership (PPP), were bad value for the taxpayer.

Fiona Hyslop, the SNP's education spokeswoman, said: "Who in their right mind would plan to use PFI to deliver vital projects like the new Forth crossing or better schools and hospitals when time and time again it is proved to be inefficient, costly and fundamentally flawed?"

The West Lothian PFI project cost 17.8 million.