Abroad
Veteran Member
Councils across the country are being urged to check the safety of school buildings after sudden closures in Edinburgh on safety grounds.
Officials ordered the closure of 17 schools and a community centre on Friday.
It is not yet known when they will re-open.
It is now feared that all schools built under the same private finance contract could pose a safety risk to children and staff.
Four schools in Edinburgh have closed due to structural concerns in the last month.
Miller, the contractors who built the schools ten years ago, were working under the Public Private Partnership 1 project.
A spokeswoman for ESP said: "While carrying out remedial works on Friday afternoon, a new issue came to light at two schools - Oxgangs and St Peter's - relating to an absence of header ties in sections of the building.
"The standard of construction carried out by the building contractor is completely unacceptable and we are now undertaking full structural surveys to determine whether this issue is more widespread.
She added: "Edinburgh Schools Partnership will accept full financial responsibility for investigating and resolving these issues.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-36005962
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Balfron High School in Stirlingshire has been partially closed due to structural problems.
A total of 440 pupils will not be attending the school in the coming week as a result.
During precautionary checks, issues with walls in the stairwell, gym and atrium were discovered.
The school was built under a private finance initiative about 15 years ago but not by the firm involved with recent problems with Edinburgh schools.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-36235690
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More than 200 schools built in Scotland under private finance initiative (PFI) schemes are now at least partially owned by offshore investment funds.
Under PFI, the private sector builds and manages school buildings in return for a fee, typically over 25-30 years.
In one project in Edinburgh, 17 new schools were built, with the council paying £1.5m a month.
Dexter Whitfield, from the European Services Strategy Unit, told a BBC Scotland investigation the Edinburgh PPP1 scheme was now owned by four different companies.
"Those four different companies are located offshore in Guernsey and Jersey, and they are basically controlled by shareholders," he said.
A critic of PFI, he has described the projects as "wealth machines", adding: "There are an awful lot of people making very substantial sums of money out of it."
The 17 schools built in Edinburgh under PPP1 were closed for repairs earlier this year after construction faults were found.
The problems - with wall and header ties, used to hold exterior and interior walls together and attach them to the rest of the building - first became apparent when part of a wall at Oxgangs Primary fell during stormy weather.
About 7,600 primary and secondary school children in the capital were eventually affected.
An independent inquiry into the matter will consider whether the private finance method contributed to the structural issues with the Buildings.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-37135611