Procurement body Scottish Futures Trust saves £132m

Procurement body Scottish Futures Trust (SFT) claims to have saved the public purse £132 million in the last 12 months.
SFT chief executive Barry White outside Eastwood High School, which is twinned with Lasswade Community Campus. Picture: Iain McLeanSFT chief executive Barry White outside Eastwood High School, which is twinned with Lasswade Community Campus. Picture: Iain McLean
SFT chief executive Barry White outside Eastwood High School, which is twinned with Lasswade Community Campus. Picture: Iain McLean

Tomorrow, the trust will mark the opening of one of two new schools commissioned as one package – Eastwood in East Renfrewshire while the other, in Lasswade in West Lothian, will open on 21 August.

The schools are “twins” in that they are nearly identical, and the two local authorities that commissioned them saved £4m, by SFT estimates. The combined project cost was £65m.

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SFT claims the schools’ example proves the success of partnering its £2.6 billion non-profit distribution (NPD) funding method with the Scottish Government’s £1.25bn Schools for the Future investment programme.

Twenty other local authorities across Scotland are now working in collaborative groups on school projects to achieve similar savings and benefits, said SFT.

Barry White, the group’s chief executive, said: “The Eastwood and Lasswade schools are a perfect example of what SFT and local authorities can achieve through collaboration.

“Working like this means all parties reduce costs, and is one of the many ways SFT has been able to secure benefits of £132m in the last year.”

The school schemes are part of SFT’s regional “hub” projects whereby public facilities such as community centres and hospitals are developed using shared resources and simplified contracts, saving government and local authorities money and creating development schemes of sufficient scale to attract private sector investors.

SFT, which has published its annual benefits statement today, says it has saved the state more than £500m since it was established in late 2008. It also manages Scotland’s tax incremental financial initiative (TIF), which allows local authorities to raise money from private investors on the basis of increased future tax receipts.

Projects which have broken ground in the last year include Glasgow Council’s £80m Buchanan Quarter project and Falkirk Council’s £67m plan to upgrade roads and flood defence systems around Grangemouth.

Another SFT project, the National Housing Trust (NHT), has built or acquired from developers 1,000 homes available at mid-market rents. White says the trust has funds for a further 500 such homes in the pipeline.

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Criticism that the SFT has not been making much progress was denied by White, who said much of the body’s challenge was overcoming a lack of understanding of its approach to slimmed-down public/private financing.

“People were sceptical about how the NHT would work. We have proved that it works,” he said.

Sir Angus Grossart, the financier who pioneered the SFT model and is the independent body’s chairman, dubbed SFT’s variety of approaches to uniting private and public sector funds for development as “business as unusual”.

He said: “A lot of time and 
effort has been spent building up our professional capacity with getting the public bodies we work with onside then making a start in the areas in which we are working. As we have proved delivery, impetus has gained traction.”

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