Projects to build five Fife schools will have quadrupled in their cost to the public purse by the time they are paid off in 2033, official figures have revealed.
According to the UK Government, two PFI/PPP initiatives signed off by the Labour-led council had a capital value of £103.9 million.
However, the taxpayer will end up footing a bill of £412 million by the time the last payment is made in 20 years’ time.
SNP Dunfermline by-election candidate Shirley-Anne Somerville said building Queen Anne High School, moving Inzievar and Holy Name primaries on to the shared Oakley campus and constructing new Duloch and Masterton primaries, showed Labour’s “incompetence” running the school estate.
She highlighted the SNP-led administration’s building of Dunfermline High School and Carnegie Primary School, which she said came without any PPP debt.
Carnegie Primary was the first primary in the UK to achieve an Outstanding rating for sustainable innovation.
Dunfermline High, which opened last year, won a Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (RIAS) award and also a Zero Waste award.
Ms Somerville said: “Schools are one of the biggest issues across the Dunfermline constituency and the contrasting records between the SNP and Labour could not be clearer.
“Under the SNP administration, award-winning schools were built in Dunfermline without a penny of PFI/PPP debt.
“Meanwhile, Labour may have built schools but they certainly didn’t pay for them. In fact, we’ll all still be paying for Labour’s disastrous private finance legacy 20 years from now.
“With such a dreadful record of incompetence looking after our local school estate, it’s no surprise that local people have absolutely no trust in the school closure consultation which Cara Hilton and her Labour colleagues are pushing through the council right now.”
The Courier left a message with Fife Council leader Alex Rowley and contacted the Scottish Labour press office but had received no response at the time of going to press.