£111m Futures Trust savings claim attacked as laughable

A CONTROVERSIAL body established to raise funds for civic building projects has delivered £111 million in savings and benefits, it has been claimed.

• John Swinney said the outcome was 'fantastic'

Officials in charge of the Scottish Futures Trust said the cash had been saved during 2009-10 - the first full year of the body launched by the SNP Government as a flagship alternative to private finance funding.

The SFT delivered funding for 14 secondary and 21 primary and special educational needs schools from its 7 billion projects portfolio during 2009-10, which also included cash for schemes such as the Aberdeen bypass and the replacement Forth crossing.

However, the SFT's claims were challenged by Labour and the Lib Dems at Holyrood, with one MSP dismissing them as "laughable".

Building costs for a typical secondary school were around 20m rather than the 25m it would have cost under a public/private partnership or private finance initiative, according to the SFT.

Barry White, chief executive of the SFT said that the savings and additional investment had been achieved mainly by councils, health boards and other public bodies pooling their resources and buying in bulk to build schools and other infrastructure projects.

He said: "Our role is to see how we can get the very best funding package. We are getting joint procurement for projects like school buildings where two local authorities agree on a common specification. It allows the public sector to use its buying power in a way that it hasn't before."

Mr White added: "We build five really good and sustainable schools rather than four iconic ones. We look to get better value for money and make sure that the focus is on what's needed.

"One of the top efficiency gains has been where we've worked with local authorities to ensure that we buy what we need rather than what we want."

The SFT said the savings were made through a mixture of 86m of efficiency gains and 27m of additional investment, as well as 1m of avoided costs. The figures also include the SFT's 3m operating costs.

Scottish Labour finance spokesman David Whitton said: "The SFT is little more than an expensive quango doing the job that civil servants used to do for nothing.

"I am deeply sceptical about whether these so-called savings could not have been achieved under the old system."

Lib Dem finance spokesman Jeremy Purvis said: "If the Scottish Futures Trust spent the same amount of time building infrastructure that it does promoting its own inflated and laughable claims on 'savings' then it wouldn't be so bad."

However, Tory finance spokesman Derek Bronwlee welcomed the savings the SFT claimed it had made.

He said: "We always believed there was scope to make savings and the challenge is to continue to do so, and save more.Alone amongst the opposition parties, we have supported the SFT's efforts to save money. It is now time for everyone in the public sector - and the parliament - to pursue the same agenda."

Fnance secretary John Swinney said that the savings announced by the SFT were "fantastic" news for the taxpayer.

"The Scottish Government established SFT to deliver better value for the public purse through new approaches to infrastructure procurement and investment.

"In its first full year, SFT achieved 111m of net benefits and savings as it built up its capacity and portfolio of projects - well within the 100 to 150m target we anticipated - which is a fantastic outcome."

SFT Portfolio of Projects

• Forth Replacement Crossing - a 2.3 billion bridge across the Forth - one of the Scottish Government's priority transport projects.

• Aberdeen bypass or Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route - a dual carriageway projected to cost nearly 400 million and create an alternative route from north to south Aberdeen, bypassing the city.

• The Borders Railway - will re-establish passenger railway services for the first time since 1969 from Edinburgh to Tweedbank.

• Edinburgh-Glasgow Improvements Programme - a rail programme that will see services between Scotland's two largest cities transformed with the fastest journey time decreasing from 50 minutes to around 35 minutes.

• New secondary school buildings: James Gillespie's High - Edinburgh; Harris Academy - Dundee; Ellon Academy/Mearns Academy - Aberdeenshire

• New primary school buildings: Garrowhill Primary/Glendale primary - Glasgow; Riverside Primary - Stirling; Bucksburn Primary/Newhills Primary - Aberdeen; Milne's Primary - Moray; Duns Primary - Scottish Borders.