I have been having a few comments published on the Universality of Cheese website. The subject being how wonderful the SNP has been for the people of Scotland.
I raised the question of why no new schools had been commissioned by Holyrood during most of the SNP's reign, but got the usual blank looks from the nat contributors. So I have decided to post a simple narrative.
Here it is;
Before they got elected, the SNP attacked PPP relentlessly making much of the costs of PPP contracts.
The SNP promised that, if elected, that they would abolish PPP.
The SNP said that, if they were in power, PPP would be replaced by a Scottish Futures Trust.
The SNP said that the Scottish Futures Trust would be a new method of financing capital projects such as schools.
The SNP also said it would use the Scottish Futures Trust to match Labour's school building programme "brick for brick".
The SNP gathered lots of protest votes against PPP. They also gathered votes on the promise to build many new schools (as Labour had done), matching Labour's school building programme "brick for brick".
When the SNP took power, it stopped all new school funding from Holyrood because it refused to use the hated PPP to fund new schools. The SNP wanted the new finnacing mecahnism, the SFT, to provide the funding mechanism for the programme to match Labour's school building programme "brick for brick".
Unfortunately, after 3 years of faffing around, the SFT was still not defined. It had no substance and no shape. It was a blob of fantasy: nobody knew what it was, what it meant, how it would be funded, how it would work.... It transired that, although the SNP had promised the SFT in its manifesto, nobody in the SNP had actually thought out how the SFT woud work! And all the effort over three desparate years had produced nothing. It was a mess.
In 2010 the Education Minister was sacked and a new one appointed. Some money was, at last, released from Holyrood funds to councils to help build schools (the SNP administration provided 50% matched funding rather than the 60% that Labour had, but it was something...).
14 new secondary schools were identified for the whole of Scotland. For comparison, 3 new secondaries were built in my own council area between 2003 and 2007, so 14 for the whole of Scotland was pretty miserable. Still it was something......
Meanwhile an organisation called the Scottish Futures Trust was established. It had no money in any "trust" nor any method of generating money. It was not a method of financing new projects. It was, in fact, that old chestnut, "free" money from pooling purchasing efforts and standardising requirements. It was, to be frank, two men and a Microsoft Project software package. Tried before, failed before.
Although, to give the so-called Scottish Futures Trust its due, it is Scottish....
Then it emerged that a condition of getting access to the funding from Holyrood was that SNP MInisters were insisting that a PPP method of funding had to be used to finance and run the new schoools projects.
So. The whole sorry saga..... the SNP builds PPP into some sort of ogre, getting protest votes on the basis that the SNP will scrap the hated PPP. Then, in power, SNP refuses for idealogical reasons to use PPP to fund new projects. Then the SNP fails to produce the promised Scottish Futres Trust, or any other financing mechanism for capital projects. Then , in desparation, the SNP ressurrects PPP and insists that councils use it!
Incompetence. Ideaological rigidity. Ignorance. And straightforward lies.
And the upshot is: no new government funded schools in 4 years.
A complete and utter fiasco and disgrace.
Showing posts with label Scottish Futures Trust. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Scottish Futures Trust. Show all posts
Monday, 7 March 2011
Sunday, 25 April 2010
What's Worse, a Waste of Money or a Waste of Time.....?
Not strictly associated with the election campaign, but this report in today's Sunday Mail returns the spotlight to Scottish issues and particularly the failures of the so-called "Scottish Futures Trust" (SFT).
For new readers, the SNP promised to abolish the Public-Private-Partnerships (PPP) that previous administrations had used for the financing and contracting of capital projects such as new schools and hospitals. The SNP would replace the "hated" PPP with a "Trust" which would identify and gather the finance for these projects and manage the projects to completion.
Unfortunately, the SFT was not a real idea at all: it was back-of-an-envelope puff, dreamt up to put something, anything, in the SNP manifesto. The SFT did not really exist, with the result that it took three whole years before even the current SFT, a sort of hands on purchasing agency with no power or authority to raise money or spend much, could even be set up.
The result is that, whereas the previous Labour/LibDem coalition had been responsible for 237 new schools, the SNP administration at Holyrood has not yet built even one school. Not one brick has been laid in 3 years. In fact, even at the best estimate, the SNP at Holyrood has authorised the building of 37 new schools, and none of these has any chance of being completed before the 2011 Scottish elections. The educational legacy of the first ever SNP administration looks likely to be no new schools in a full administration, an unprecedented failure to deliver better facilities to our teachers and pupils.
The Sunday Mail story says that even now, almost a year after the SFT was officially set up, there has been £1.4million spent, but there is no sign of any concrete ( forgive the pun) progress on building new schools, hospitals or any other capital project.
Alex Salmond is fond of going on UK TV and boasting that his minority government is proof that a hung parliament can work. Maybes aye, maybes naw, but it depends what you mean by "working": if the measure of success of an administration is how well it provides for the future needs of its citizens, then the tale of the SFT is a tale of failure on an unprecedented scale.
The SFT is undoubtedly a waste of money, but worse than that, it has been a waste of time, of four wasted years in which no schools were commissioned from Holyrood.
Alex Salmond may think that his administration is a "success", and he may bask in the belief that being invited onto the BBC to say so at length is some sort of personal or political endorsement. But not building schools is a definition of failure in any sane world, and the SFT is the vehicle of that failure.
For new readers, the SNP promised to abolish the Public-Private-Partnerships (PPP) that previous administrations had used for the financing and contracting of capital projects such as new schools and hospitals. The SNP would replace the "hated" PPP with a "Trust" which would identify and gather the finance for these projects and manage the projects to completion.
Unfortunately, the SFT was not a real idea at all: it was back-of-an-envelope puff, dreamt up to put something, anything, in the SNP manifesto. The SFT did not really exist, with the result that it took three whole years before even the current SFT, a sort of hands on purchasing agency with no power or authority to raise money or spend much, could even be set up.
The result is that, whereas the previous Labour/LibDem coalition had been responsible for 237 new schools, the SNP administration at Holyrood has not yet built even one school. Not one brick has been laid in 3 years. In fact, even at the best estimate, the SNP at Holyrood has authorised the building of 37 new schools, and none of these has any chance of being completed before the 2011 Scottish elections. The educational legacy of the first ever SNP administration looks likely to be no new schools in a full administration, an unprecedented failure to deliver better facilities to our teachers and pupils.
The Sunday Mail story says that even now, almost a year after the SFT was officially set up, there has been £1.4million spent, but there is no sign of any concrete ( forgive the pun) progress on building new schools, hospitals or any other capital project.
Alex Salmond is fond of going on UK TV and boasting that his minority government is proof that a hung parliament can work. Maybes aye, maybes naw, but it depends what you mean by "working": if the measure of success of an administration is how well it provides for the future needs of its citizens, then the tale of the SFT is a tale of failure on an unprecedented scale.
The SFT is undoubtedly a waste of money, but worse than that, it has been a waste of time, of four wasted years in which no schools were commissioned from Holyrood.
Alex Salmond may think that his administration is a "success", and he may bask in the belief that being invited onto the BBC to say so at length is some sort of personal or political endorsement. But not building schools is a definition of failure in any sane world, and the SFT is the vehicle of that failure.
Friday, 20 November 2009
John Swinney - Scottish Politician of the Year
Mr Swinney is, it seems, "Scottish Politician of the Year". Which award was given him by the Herald because "he has handled a very difficult brief in the teeth of the recession really well "...
Is that right. Let's examine the evidence...
John Swinney is the Finanace spokesman for the SNP. The SNP had two big promises in the area of Finance.
1. A local Income Tax to replace the "Hated Community Charge".
2. A Scottish Futures Trust to replace the "Hated PPP".
Mr Swinney is the man in charge of these key policies, neither of which has been enacted.
The LIT was complicated in theory, obscure in practice, fiendishly complicated in execution and quite probably illegal in Scots law. So it has been dropped and the Community Charge continues in being.
None of this was news to Mr Swinney. Some version of LIT has been mooted on and off for 50 years: but it has never been enacted for the reasons detailed above. Mr Swinney knew all of that, but still went ahead and made a manifesto promise to deliver it...without actually thinking through the details of his chosen policy.
The Scottish Futures Trust, now there's a story. This magicical mechanism was intended to do away with PPP. It would, we were promised, provide the Finance and the Project Management Mechanisms to deliver major infrastructure developments, more quickly, efficiently and at a fraction of the costs of PPP. And...
Well, to be honest, it doesn't exist. There is something masquerading under the name of a "Scottish Futures Trust", but it does not provide the Finance for major (or indeed any)infrastructure projects. If truth be told the so-called "Scottish Futures Trust" consists of an office in Glasgow with a big rubber stamp with which to "approve" projects that would have been approved in any case. It's fig-leaf and a process bottleneck. It's essentially worthless, and it has not delivered on new major development.
In fact, while we were waiting for this mythical beast to be born, the SNP built not one new school, EARL and GARL were abandoned, and the Aberdeen ring road sunk for lack of vision by the SNP and lack of a proper funding mechanism. The one major infrastructure project that is to go ahead is the new Forth Bridge. And the funding? We don't really know yet, but it will not be from the SFT....
Two and a half years wasted in the futile pursuit of badly defined and thought out policies on local taxation and infrastructure funding, and vital infrastructure projects dropped or delayed or de-scoped as a consequence.
And the politician responsible is "Scottish Politician of the Year"?
What must the rest of them be like...???
Is that right. Let's examine the evidence...
John Swinney is the Finanace spokesman for the SNP. The SNP had two big promises in the area of Finance.
1. A local Income Tax to replace the "Hated Community Charge".
2. A Scottish Futures Trust to replace the "Hated PPP".
Mr Swinney is the man in charge of these key policies, neither of which has been enacted.
The LIT was complicated in theory, obscure in practice, fiendishly complicated in execution and quite probably illegal in Scots law. So it has been dropped and the Community Charge continues in being.
None of this was news to Mr Swinney. Some version of LIT has been mooted on and off for 50 years: but it has never been enacted for the reasons detailed above. Mr Swinney knew all of that, but still went ahead and made a manifesto promise to deliver it...without actually thinking through the details of his chosen policy.
The Scottish Futures Trust, now there's a story. This magicical mechanism was intended to do away with PPP. It would, we were promised, provide the Finance and the Project Management Mechanisms to deliver major infrastructure developments, more quickly, efficiently and at a fraction of the costs of PPP. And...
Well, to be honest, it doesn't exist. There is something masquerading under the name of a "Scottish Futures Trust", but it does not provide the Finance for major (or indeed any)infrastructure projects. If truth be told the so-called "Scottish Futures Trust" consists of an office in Glasgow with a big rubber stamp with which to "approve" projects that would have been approved in any case. It's fig-leaf and a process bottleneck. It's essentially worthless, and it has not delivered on new major development.
In fact, while we were waiting for this mythical beast to be born, the SNP built not one new school, EARL and GARL were abandoned, and the Aberdeen ring road sunk for lack of vision by the SNP and lack of a proper funding mechanism. The one major infrastructure project that is to go ahead is the new Forth Bridge. And the funding? We don't really know yet, but it will not be from the SFT....
Two and a half years wasted in the futile pursuit of badly defined and thought out policies on local taxation and infrastructure funding, and vital infrastructure projects dropped or delayed or de-scoped as a consequence.
And the politician responsible is "Scottish Politician of the Year"?
What must the rest of them be like...???
Friday, 9 October 2009
Where's our schools Fiona?
In February 2007, Fiona Hyslop, speaking to The Herald, said:
“Within the first 100 days of an SNP government we'd start replacing PPP with a Scottish Futures Trust. It would be a not-for-profit trust which would serve as an alternative finance scheme - and it would squeeze out the PPP programme.”
Two and a half years later, we have no Scottish Futures Trust and the effect on our (non-existent) school building programme is evident.
SNP politicians say that they have "opened" a number of new schools, but what they do not say is that the SNP has not commissioned one new school in all the time they have been in power.
Last week they announced that there would be part-funding for 14 new secondary schools, but none of these are expected to be complete by the time of the next Scotttish elections.
As for the claims to have "opened" new schools: over the last two years, the only projects that have been completed are either PPP projects left over from the Lab/LibDem administration or delivered and funded by local authorities, without help from Holyrood.
Ministers like Fiona Hyslop have been quick to attend opening ceremonies and take the credit, but they have done nothing to deserve any credit for any schools.
A damning statistic: tThe Scottish Futures Trust will not build and deliver a single school in the lifetime of this parliament.
“Within the first 100 days of an SNP government we'd start replacing PPP with a Scottish Futures Trust. It would be a not-for-profit trust which would serve as an alternative finance scheme - and it would squeeze out the PPP programme.”
Two and a half years later, we have no Scottish Futures Trust and the effect on our (non-existent) school building programme is evident.
SNP politicians say that they have "opened" a number of new schools, but what they do not say is that the SNP has not commissioned one new school in all the time they have been in power.
Last week they announced that there would be part-funding for 14 new secondary schools, but none of these are expected to be complete by the time of the next Scotttish elections.
As for the claims to have "opened" new schools: over the last two years, the only projects that have been completed are either PPP projects left over from the Lab/LibDem administration or delivered and funded by local authorities, without help from Holyrood.
Ministers like Fiona Hyslop have been quick to attend opening ceremonies and take the credit, but they have done nothing to deserve any credit for any schools.
A damning statistic: tThe Scottish Futures Trust will not build and deliver a single school in the lifetime of this parliament.
Tuesday, 29 September 2009
What Exactly is The Scottish Futures Trust? ..and can we trust it to build our schools...??
The Education secretary has announced 14 new Secondary Schools* across Scotland. These schools are to be financed by traditional methods of borrowing.
So what, I hear you say, of the SNP's flagship "Scottish Futures Trust", the all singing all dancing replacement for PPP, the magical money making machine that was to do away with the hated PFI and provide enough money to match the previous, Labour-led, administraton's school-building programme "brick for brick"? Whatever happened to the SFT?
The SNP says that these schools will use the SFT. But they will not be financed by the SFT. How can that be?
Well. It seems that the "Scottish Futures Trust" has been transformed (without actually telling anyone) from
...."an all singing all dancing financing mechanism that will help match the previous school-building programm brick-for-brick",
into ...
..."a wee office in Glasgow where 5 civil servants will use Project Management Software to report on the progress of a few new schools that are actually financed in the same old way as before..."!!!
Right. So no Scottish Futures Trust and just 14 schools and none of them likely to be completed by the end of this Parliament.
That's why we voted SNP, is it?
As I said elsewhere: the SNP lack of vision and ambition for the people of Scotland is so disappointing. Disgraceful actually.
*Any new school building is good news, but to put this figure in context: there were 3 Secondary and 3 Primary Schools built in my own council area by the last administration. So only 14 in all of Scotland, and not likely to be completed any time soon, is pretty mean, is it not?
a little p.s. 6th Oct. 2009.
There is to be a debate at Holyrood on Thursday on the provision of schools. Apparently Fiona Hyslop ducked the last big Education debate (on teacher numbers). Will she hide away again?
So what, I hear you say, of the SNP's flagship "Scottish Futures Trust", the all singing all dancing replacement for PPP, the magical money making machine that was to do away with the hated PFI and provide enough money to match the previous, Labour-led, administraton's school-building programme "brick for brick"? Whatever happened to the SFT?
The SNP says that these schools will use the SFT. But they will not be financed by the SFT. How can that be?
Well. It seems that the "Scottish Futures Trust" has been transformed (without actually telling anyone) from
...."an all singing all dancing financing mechanism that will help match the previous school-building programm brick-for-brick",
into ...
..."a wee office in Glasgow where 5 civil servants will use Project Management Software to report on the progress of a few new schools that are actually financed in the same old way as before..."!!!
Right. So no Scottish Futures Trust and just 14 schools and none of them likely to be completed by the end of this Parliament.
That's why we voted SNP, is it?
As I said elsewhere: the SNP lack of vision and ambition for the people of Scotland is so disappointing. Disgraceful actually.
*Any new school building is good news, but to put this figure in context: there were 3 Secondary and 3 Primary Schools built in my own council area by the last administration. So only 14 in all of Scotland, and not likely to be completed any time soon, is pretty mean, is it not?
a little p.s. 6th Oct. 2009.
There is to be a debate at Holyrood on Thursday on the provision of schools. Apparently Fiona Hyslop ducked the last big Education debate (on teacher numbers). Will she hide away again?
Monday, 17 August 2009
UK Underwrites Glasgow - Edinburgh Rail Upgrade
The headline in the Herald says "Edinburgh to Glasgow in 35 Minutes". The story, which is good news in itself, tells how Minister at Holyrood are "relieved" that the money has been found to finance an improvement to the railway line between Glasgow and Edinburgh, and that the key financial element is that the money can be borrowed against the security of the value of UK Rail Network (my italics and emphasis).
So. It's the value of the UK network that allows a vital upgrade to go ahead in Scotland. Is this a benefit of the union or what?
Also, just a passing thought: why is this top-notch-high-grade-really-really-vital infrastructure development not being financed using the wonderful-marvelous-better-than-anything Scottish Futures Trust? Could it be because the SFT is a duck which can now be clearly declared as a dead and buried duck? Isn't it time to give the SFT a solemn sending off, along with the LIT, the abolition of Student debt, the 18 class sizes, the brick-for-brick school building programme and all the other fantastical elements that padded out the SNP's 2007 election "manifesto"?
So. It's the value of the UK network that allows a vital upgrade to go ahead in Scotland. Is this a benefit of the union or what?
Also, just a passing thought: why is this top-notch-high-grade-really-really-vital infrastructure development not being financed using the wonderful-marvelous-better-than-anything Scottish Futures Trust? Could it be because the SFT is a duck which can now be clearly declared as a dead and buried duck? Isn't it time to give the SFT a solemn sending off, along with the LIT, the abolition of Student debt, the 18 class sizes, the brick-for-brick school building programme and all the other fantastical elements that padded out the SNP's 2007 election "manifesto"?
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