SNP trust branded an 'expensive scandal'

Published on Saturday 7 March 2009 19:44

THE £23m Government body charged with rebuilding crumbling schools has only sent one e-mail on financing new education projects since its formation was announced nine months ago, it was claimed last night.

The SNP's Scottish Futures Trust was branded an "extortionately expensive scandal" after it emerged that correspondence offering advice on solving Scotland's classroom crisis was limited to a lone e-mail to Orkney Council.

The lack of help offered by the SNP's flagship organisation was revealed in a series of Freedom of Information requests asking the Government for all details of advice offered on "planning, delivery and financing" of projects by the SFT since it was set up under the chairmanship of financier Sir Angus Grossart.

At a time when 10,000 pupils are being educated in substandard buildings and 80 schools are judged to be beyond repair, the only SFT correspondence on education was an e-mail sent on January 29 to the Orkney Island Council's schools project. The Government refused to release the contents of the e-mail. But Orkney Council said it related to projects "which do not come under the SFT banner".

The message referred to plans for a new Kirkwall Grammar School, a new Stromness Primary and a new halls of residence to house pupils from outlying islands, all of which are to be built in partnership with a developer rather than through SFT.

The lack of help being offered by SFT was uncovered by the Liberal Democrats, who submitted a wide-ranging set of Freedom of Information requests. The results of their inquiries have added to suspicions that the SFT's failure to get off the ground has held up important public building projects.

Jeremy Purvis, the Lib Dem finance spokesman who was behind the FoI requests, said: "This is supposed to be a serious advisory body providing the kind of advice that public bodies require for the delivery of infrastructure.

"The fact that we have exposed that there is no written advice for things such as flood management, universities and colleges and just one e-mail to Orkney about schools is an absolute disgrace.

"We were then promised that it would be an advisory body and now we know that it is not advising.

"At 23m it is an extortionately expensive scandal – a scandalous waste of money that should be halted."

The SFT was originally proposed as a body to raise bonds for major projects and was introduced by the SNP, as it had ideological objections to Labour's public/private/partnership capital building schemes.

When the SFT's business case was unveiled in May last year it set out running costs of 23m for its first five years.

A Scottish Government spokesman said: "SFT staff have been in regular contact with a range of public bodies. Written material held by the Scottish Government only provides a partial account of the activity SFT has undertaken.

"Just this week, CBI Scotland offered its support to SFT as a new and better way of achieving maximum value for the public purse.

"The SFT is playing an active part in supporting infrastructure investment in Scotland, and will be used in the commissioning of a new school project later this year."