The Scottish Government was made aware of the “structural collapse” risks of concrete last summer, a series of emails has revealed.
Correspondence between the Scottish Government and local authority officials from July of last year, released under freedom of information legislation, shows a document prepared by the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service being shared in relation to reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac).
In a briefing, the fire service warns of potential “structural collapse” of hospitals, the “prevalence of asbestos in buildings of this age” and the “unknown performance” of the material in a fire.
The UK Government moved to close buildings at 104 schools in England last week, while the Scottish Government has opted to keep schools open and carry out a “desk-based review” which is expected to take “some months” to complete.
Read more: Humza Yousaf admits concrete investigations will take 'some months'
Scottish Lib Dem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton, who has been warning of issues with the concrete in recent months, said the “head start” that could be gained in dealing with the issue had been “squandered”.
On July 8 of last year, an unnamed official within the Scottish Government sent an email to staff members at Falkirk Council and Fife Council, sharing the SFRS document.
They said: “We are contacting you in your respective roles on the Shops (Scottish heads of property services) and Ades (Association of Directors of Education Scotland) resource networks.
“The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has approached the SG in relation to reinforced autoclaved acerated concrete.
Read more: Neil Gray says 'no immediate risk' as he defends schools staying open
“We understand that the expectation is that the hazard identification will form part of the normal workplace risk assessment regime under health and safety legislation.
“Therefore, do you know if there has been any work done to identify schools with Raac in Scotland?”
The official from Fife responded that West Lothian Council had been dealing with issues relating to Raac, while the Falkirk-based member of staff said they had never heard of the concrete.
Later in the chain, a briefing from West Lothian Council by the authority’s head of finance and property services, which was put before a meeting in June of 2021, was attached.
The briefing said nine buildings within the council area had been found to contain Raac concrete, including four primary schools, a secondary school and four community centres.
Read more: Collapse risk concrete present at 35 schools
At the time of the meeting, remedial work was undertaken on six of the properties, while three others were receiving inspections every six months with consideration of works to be made.
Mr Cole-Hamilton said: “These documents suggest that Government officials were made aware of the risks posed by Raac more than a year ago.
“Both West Lothian Council and Scottish Fire and Rescue were sounding the alarm but it seems like ministers didn’t listen.
“That’s a year’s head start that has been squandered rather than using it to make buildings safe and put in place a national fund to help remove this concrete from public spaces.
“We need a list of public buildings which contain this dangerous concrete and a ministerial statement explaining why the Government chose not to act despite the warnings.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel