The City of Edinburgh Council is being ripped off to the tune of £42 million as they continue to pay for wretched PFI contracts – eating in to vital council education spending.
Research from the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICe) has found that the amount being forked out by City of Edinburgh Council is 11% of its education resource funding, meaning millions are being wasted on the contracts.
PFI contracts were introduced by the Tories and adopted by Labour during their time at the helm of the Scottish Government.
Gordon Macdonald MSP said: “The rotten PFI contracts were introduced by the Tories but supercharged by the Labour-led Scottish Government and unnecessarily cost councils across Scotland, including Edinburgh.
“It is incredible that the lasting legacy of Labour governments continues to be felt as schools’ budgets are eaten up significantly by these shameful contracts.
“The SNP scrapped PFI contracts, meaning that money can be spent on Scotland’s young people and not on absurdly expensive contracts.
“This demonstrates how we still cannot trust Labour with the public purse in Scotland as we continue to pay for their disastrous decisions in government.”
| Net revenue expenditure on education services and schools PFI unitary charges (£m) in 2019/20 | |||||
| Education Services (£m) | PFI unitary charges (£m) | PFI unitary charges as a % of education expenditure | |||
| Aberdeen City* | 174 | NA | NA | ||
| Aberdeenshire | 275 | 13 | 5% | ||
| Angus | 104 | 6 | 6% | ||
| Argyll & Bute* | 99 | NA | NA | ||
| City of Edinburgh | 379 | 42 | 11% | ||
| Clackmannanshire | 55 | 8 | 15% | ||
| Dumfries & Galloway | 147 | 15 | 10% | ||
| Dundee City | 136 | 12 | 9% | ||
| East Ayrshire | 128 | 11 | 8% | ||
| East Dunbartonshire | 128 | 15 | 12% | ||
| East Lothian | 97 | 10 | 10% | ||
| East Renfrewshire | 120 | 13 | 11% | ||
| Falkirk* | 161 | 13 | 8% | ||
| Fife | 349 | 17 | 5% | ||
| Glasgow City | 580 | 57 | 10% | ||
| Highland | 241 | 26 | 11% | ||
| Inverclyde | 80 | 20 | 25% | ||
| Midlothian | 92 | 11 | 12% | ||
| Moray | 85 | NA | NA | ||
| Na h-Eileanan Siar | 42 | NA | NA | ||
| North Ayrshire | 136 | 13 | 9% | ||
| North Lanarkshire | 368 | 24 | 7% | ||
| Orkney Islands | 33 | NA | NA | ||
| Perth & Kinross | 150 | 17 | 11% | ||
| Renfrewshire | 167 | 17 | 10% | ||
| Scottish Borders | 113 | 9 | 8% | ||
| Shetland Islands | 43 | NA | NA | ||
| South Ayrshire | 111 | 11 | 10% | ||
| South Lanarkshire | 341 | 36 | 11% | ||
| Stirling | 102 | 15 | 15% | ||
| West Dunbartonshire | 102 | 12 | 12% | ||
| West Lothian | 189 | 15 | 8% | ||
| TOTAL | 5,327 | 461 | 9% |