Edinburgh Sucks! | PFI with Children & Families

Children & Families

PFI with Children & Families

By The Basa ⋅ November 22, 2006 ⋅

The council are pushing PFI on our schools system with soundbytes like “300 schools will be rebuilt or refurbished by 2009, representing an investment of £2.2 billion.” However, this hides the real truth that this is not a government investment, it is in fact a tactic to allow the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, to keep his public borrowing down whilst ‘allowing’ the local authority to borrow to mortgage the schools for 30 years. Parents (voters) might believe this represents a huge governmental investment in education but it does not. It certainly hasn’t been successfull:

An Audit Scotland report in 2002 warned that “to defray the PFI costs… councils need to identify new funding to pay for the new level of service… either reductions elsewhere or increased taxation”.

The Audit Scotland report stated definitively that “there was no evidence of PFI benefits to the operation of school facilities”.

As a new round of PPPs begins in Edinburgh, Ewan Aitken, the council leader, said Edinburgh has learned from the mistakes of its first phase of PPPs. Unfortunately, the recognition of previous failings does nothing to help a school tied into a contractual arrangement for 30 years.

At one Edinburgh secondary, pupils made noticeboards in design and technology class and installed them. This prompted a letter from the contractor claiming it was “an act of gross vandalism”. Teachers are not allowed to alter heating settings in classrooms, and posters can only be put up on specified noticeboards.

Canteens that are far too small - the Royal High School in Edinburgh has a pupil roll of 1,200 but can seat only 200 in its canteen - are another feature of the capital’s first PPP scheme.

Paramedics had to be called to Dunbar Grammar, right, after one of the teachers suffered an electric shock when he went to switch on a light. A fire inspector at the same school came out to do a risk assessment and said the lighting was inadequate outside the school and it failed to pass the necessary safety requirements.

Teachers at one school were told to fill in a risk assessment form because they wanted to have a bar during a ceilidh. At another school, teachers were forced to fill in a form and ask permission to install a light bulb or noticeboard.

The contractor for East Lothian’s school PPP, Ballast, went into administration. It was months before Balfour Beattie took on the contract, which covered five schools - Ross High in Tranent, Musselburgh Grammar, North Berwick Academy, Dunbar Academy, Preston High in Prestonpans, and Knox Academy, Haddington.

At Musselburgh, sub-contractors threatened to repossess school equipment and the contents of the library were impounded due to unpaid bills. Pupils also raised concerns such as a faulty heating system, foul-smelling industrial bins and a lack of adequate toilets for female pupils.

Dreamed up by the Tories in 1992 - and enthusiastically adopted by New Labour and the City of Edinburgh Council, the problems with PFI and PPP in our schools has been a nightmare until now. Make sure you remember this when you put your numbers on the ballot papers next year.

More Info: Have councils learned from first PPP schools?