Quite a lot has happened over the last few weeks. Cllr McLaren, who chairs the Education Committee at Edinburgh Council wrote to Boroughmuir (BHS) in September to tell us she had been advised by the Scottish Government that there is no budget for capital expenditure for the school. (This is part of a combined application for BHS, James Gillespie's and Portobello High School, St Crispins and St Johns Primary school - known collectively as the "Wave 3 schools" ).
Representatives of the Wave 3 schools then met with Fiona Hyslop, MSP (1st October) in her role as a Lothians constituency MSP. (She is also Cabinet Secretary for Education at the Scottish Government).
She advised us that to qualify for a capital budget for new schools City of Edinburgh
Council (CEC) should have submitted detailed costings and a full
submission to the Scottish Executive (now Government) months ago, with
a clear view on how they would fund the revenue needed to service
borrowings/capital repayments. They might then have received an
allocation towards the cost of the capital expenditure from the
spending review currently under way at UK level (ie this funding would
go from UK government to Scottish Government and thence to CEC). Apparently a full application was not submitted by CEC. So the earliest under the current system CEC
could now bid for funds is in advance of the next spending review in
2010. This explains the comment that CEC wouldn't have got the budget
even under the previous administration.
CEC is now hamstrung financially in two ways (a) they are running a
budget deficit this year and (b) they had not made provision for the
revenue they will need to find to meet the repayments on PPP2 from 2010
so that their forward financial commitments are substantial - this
makes it less easy for them to demonstrate they will have the necessary
revenues to fund capital borrowing for other schools.
The Scottish Government prefers the funding mechanism South Lanarkshire
has adopted rather than PPP, but they
are not holding back PPP's that had already been committed under the
previous government. The Scottish Government are also investigating a form of bond funding but the
time-scale on that, should it happen, is some way off. FH's view was
that either of these mechanisms is better than PPP, but CEC would need
to prove that it can fund the revenue requirements.
FH indicated that she is trying to work with CEC to resolve some of
their problems and has a considerable degree of sympathy with eg
Portobello who thought they were nearly there as regards a new school. The SNP/Scottish Government have not yet been advised from Westminster
what the block grant will be -
they are expecting that information within the next month. In addition
all the indications are that the current spending review at the UK
level will be tight
FH's advice was
1) to push the Council to submit fully costed plans for the new/refurbished
schools, with site valuations, options appraisal etc
2) to write formally to Marilyne Mclaren demanding action and asking
for their plans to resolve the issue
3) to keep working together - strength in numbers etc
4) to write to her with a short synopiss of each school's position and
she will then write to CEC with her Lothian's MSP hat on.
5) To look for a joint solution including CEC, Scottish Government and National Government - lobby at all levels
Her view is that the above can only be solved
with agreement and co-operation at all levels
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