The Scottish schools scandal has featured on the timetable at the Scottish Parliament whose Education Committee was hearing evidence as we went to press as part of its inquiry into how so many schools could have been so shoddily built (see News).
The inquiry has been told that five further schools have been found to have defects. No fewer than 17 schools had to be closed because of potentially serious defects when a wall at one of the schools collapsed early last year. A report into the scandal was released earlier this year (see CL Vol 28 No 2), highlighting serious inadequacies in the site inspection and quality assurance regimes on the projects, many procured through public private partnerships (PPP).
The private finance procurement approach itself was cleared as a cause of the faults, but the Parliamentary Committee was told it appeared that PPP contractors had deliberately cut corners by a council’s Head of Service for Property and Facilities Management (see News).
A City of Edinburgh Council official revealed the latest defects which were on schools outwith the PPP, telling the Committee: ‘I’m absolutely 100% prepared to admit that, at that time, the council got it wrong.’
Committee convener James Dornan responded: ‘That’s not getting it wrong, that’s fundamentally missing the whole point of what you were there to do. That’s not making a mistake, that’s making an absolutely huge error of incredible proportions.’
The hapless Aberdeenshire official went on to say that there was ‘probably far too much work on, there was harsh penalties for failing to complete on time and, because of that, that impacted on the quality.’ The situation had been ‘horrendous’, but the industry had now ‘matured’ and was no longer in the same situation.
We await the report of the Education Committee’s inquiry to see what the Scottish MPs think of that claim. If the tone of some of their questioning is anything to go by the report is likely to be a hard read for anyone in the construction industry.
Even harder could be the eventual outcome of investigations into the Grenfell Tower disaster, with suggestions being made that a drive to lowest cost lay behind selection of a cladding system or material that allowed a fire to spread rapidly. The Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) had already made moves to set up an investigation into build quality in the industry in the wake of the Edinburgh schools scandal, but Grenfell Tower has added urgency to that.
A commission comprising past presidents will be chaired by immediate past president Paul Nash who said the events at Grenfell Tower further underline the need for ‘an urgent review of the way in which quality is managed in our industry.’
Mr Nash says the CIOB will look at the behaviours that have led to ‘a lack of focus on quality at all stages of the build process, from design and procurement through to construction and re-fit’.
The CIOB admission that the problem exists is to be welcomed, as is their showing a lead in setting up the commission, but other professional bodies also need to respond similarly and co-operate to pin down what has gone wrong with quality assurance processes in UK construction. A cross-industry approach is needed to redeem the industry’s reputation, and to restore confidence in the safety of its output.
Nick Barrett
Editor