Schools 're-announcement' under fire

Wednesday, June 02, 2010

The Scottish Government's announcement that plans are going ahead to spend £300m on 35 new schools has met with a dusty response from opposition parties.

The cash is the first tranche of the £1.25bn Schools for the Future programme which, according to the government, will see every local authority benefit.

Funding will be made available for 14 secondary schools, 20 primary schools and one special school.

The Scottish Futures Trust (SFT) will work in partnership with the councils to deliver the new projects.

Announcing the funding, Minister for Skills and Lifelong Learning Keith Brown said the government had already: "lifted over 110,000 pupils from schools in poor condition, reversing the trend of under-investment and neglect in Scotland's school estate."

He added: "Today's announcement will see a further 18,000 pupils and over 1,300 teachers move to fit-for-purpose, modern learning facilities that meet the needs of education in the 21st Century."

Scottish Labour described the announcement as "an embarrassing re-announcement of a re-announcement" claiming that the SNP had first announced the schools in question in November last year and before that in September.

Education spokesman Des McNulty described the SFT as a "huge white elephant," and said that councils had been forced to delay much-needed school replacements and refurbishment projects because of "the failure" of the SFT. He said that at least two years had been lost because the pipeline of new projects was shut down by the SNP.

McNulty added that the announcement of the schools programme was "the embarrassing re-announcement of a re-announcement".

"Scotland was promised a raft of new schools by the SNP – this announcement shows the bankruptcy of their ambition. None of the schools announced today will be completed in the lifetime of this Parliament."

Liberal Democrat Education spokesperson Margaret Smith claimed that the SNP had completely failed to keep their school building promise.

"Dozens of schools in Scotland remain in a poor state of repair and new buildings are desperately required," she said.

"The SNP pledged to match the school building achievements of the previous Liberal Democrat-Labour Executive 'brick for brick'," she continued, "But this re-announcement represents the first schools planned by the SNP, and building hasn't even started yet."

And Conservative Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Education & Lifelong Learning Liz Smith was also critical of the announcement – and of the SFT: "The SNP promised that the Scottish Futures Trust would save £150m a year.

We believe there is scope to deliver dramatic savings in capital spending and we want to see the SFT live up to the promises made by the SNP Government – indeed we would like it to go further and save more."

Smith warned: "If the savings don't materialise, SNP Ministers will have a lot of explaining to do."

She too was critical of the SNP government's announcement describing it as: "nothing short of a disgrace".