Schools falling down

Seventeen schools in Edinburgh (plus a few other buildings) are to be closed indefinitely from Monday amid safety concerns about their construction. The schools were all built as part of the city's private finance programme around a decade ago.

It said Edinburgh Schools Partnership (ESP), which constructed the buildings and manages them on behalf of the council, was unable to give assurances that buildings built under the Public Private Partnership 1 (PPP1) were safe.

Council leader Andrew Burns said: "Clearly we have every right to expect these schools to have been built to a good standard and in accordance with industry practice. We now know this isn't the case. ESP have let the council down but more importantly they have the let children, parents and staff of this city down.

Signed in 2001, Edinburgh's Public Private Partnership deal for schools was worth £360m. In return for 30 years of fixed payments from the council, a private consortium designed, built and managed the schools. The four Edinburgh schools closed last month were all built by Miller Construction, which was acquired by Galliford Try in 2014. Inspections have been taking place in Glasgow, Fife and Inverclyde of other schools built by Miller Construction.

We can fully expect in the future various legal claims to take place in the courts with all the accompanying denials and counter-claims as those involve pass the blame and responsibility to others. But clearly at the root of the scandal will be business profits rather than safety being the prime concern.