Allan welcomes funding for new school

Alisdair Allan MSP

Western Isles MSP, Alasdair Allan has today welcomed news that the Scottish Government will be providing funding to build a new primary school in Daliburgh, South Uist.

This comes as part of a package which will see the Scottish Government build 21 new primary schools across Scotland in what is the first round of the new £1.25 billion school building programme.

Dr Allan commented:

“I am delighted that the Scottish Government has today invested in another Western Isles primary school, which I know will be a huge local asset to all those families and children in the southend of South Uist.

“Previous decades have seen huge under-investment and neglect of Scotland’s schools with the current Government having inherited a huge number of pupils in bad or poor condition schools. However, after the billions of investment already underway and recently announced this number is due to be dramatically cut under this Scottish Government.

“I have always stated my support for the local schools in the islands and the sustainability they offer to communities and families in remote areas. Local schools are at the heart of communities in many parts of Scotland and this major investment by the Scottish Government goes a long way to ensuring that we make these communities more, not less, attractive, to young families.”

Education Secretary Fiona Hyslop said .

“Today’s announcement means that every local authority in Scotland will benefit from our new £1.25bn school building programme, as we continue to reverse the trend of under investment and neglect in Scotland’s school estate seen in previous decades.

“This Government inherited a legacy of 260,000 pupils in poor or bad condition school buildings and in just two and a half years that number has dropped by over 100,000. We are on track to deliver in excess of 250 new or refurbished schools in the lifetime of this Parliament through £2bn of investment already underway, supported by decisions made by the Scottish Government.

“And in the space of two months we have announced additional support for around £700m of new investment in refurbishing and replacing 35 schools, which will see over 18,000 more young people learning in cutting-edge, modern classrooms.

“Communities, teachers and pupils throughout Scotland will benefit from this new investment and the latest phase will have an impact right across the country, from the Borders up to Shetland, from Aberdeen across to Dunoon.

“We have engaged with COSLA and the councils to identify the schools that will be part of this next stage, with all these projects expecting to be completed by 2013-14. This is by no means the end of the programme and we are continuing to work together to identify further schools that will benefit through the next phases of investment.”

The following criteria were considered as part of the process to identify the schools: distribution of needs, nationally; best available information about schools’ condition and “unsuitability” to deliver modern education; schools which are not part of a funded programme already; local authorities’ own priorities; and readiness to proceed.

The Scottish Futures Trust (SFT) will have a central role in managing this new school building programme, working alongside locals authorities. The SFT will develop, recommend and implement approaches that will secure a better schools programme across Scotland, and better value for money than could be achieved through each local authority working separately.