A wall collapse at a city primary that led to the closure of 17 schools due to structural defects could have killed pupils, an inquiry has found.

A report on the Edinburgh schools scandal said it “was a matter of timing and luck” that there were no fatalities or injuries in the incident at Oxgangs Primary in January 2016.

Construction expert Professor John Cole’s findings raise issues of “considerable significance” to the wider construction industry.

The Oxgangs wall collapse was one of five “avoidable incidents” of external panels falling in strong winds at Scottish schools, the inquiry found.

ADVERT

Mr Cole’s 250-page report criticises the city council, construction firms and Edinburgh Schools Partnership (ESP) – which runs the schools on the local authority’s behalf – for poor construction, inadequate supervision and inefficient record keeping.

The investigation was commissioned following the school closures last year, which displaced more than 8000 pupils and hundreds of staff for several months.

Checks ordered on all city schools built under the PPP1 finance agreement after the Oxgangs incident uncovered “widespread” defects.

Mr Cole wrote: “The fact that no injuries or fatalities to children resulted from the collapse of the gable wall at Oxgangs school was a matter of timing and luck.”

ADVERT

And he concluded the defects were due to “poor construction and inadequate supervision”.

Around 440 heavy steel wind posts had to be installed across the 17 schools to give them the “required structural integrity”.

The expert also highlighted that “an appropriate level of independent scrutiny was missing” throughout the building works.

He warned that “ineffective quality assurance measures” were likely to span across the Scottish construction industry.

He has made 40 recommendations covering areas including procurement, construction, training, and specific suggestions for the city council.

“It would be naive to assume that the lack of quality control evidenced in the construction of the walls of the Edinburgh schools is limited either to Edinburgh or to school buildings,” Mr Cole wrote.

“This Edinburgh schools problem has a greater significance than it otherwise might have had due to the fact that it is the same set of fundamental defects… [that were] found across 17 schools built by a range of different main contractors, bricklaying subcontractors, and bricklaying squads.

ADVERT

“This was not the result of the isolated incompetence of a rogue sub-contractor or bricklaying squad.”

Mr Cole’s team also discovered that building completion certificates had never been issued for Craigmount High or Royal High, in breach of building regulations.

A completion certificate for Gracemount High was only applied for and issued seven years after pupils had moved into the building.

The report team struggled to find “key contract documents” from the council records and only a “limited number of drawings” were made available.

Some information dating from the 2000 to 2005 construction period “had either not been retained, could not be discovered within the archives, or was not offered to the inquiry by those organisations that may still hold relevant information in their possession”.

The report also uncovered breaches of “fire-stopping” in the 17 schools. These are being investigated urgently.

Mr Cole found that the city council had a “sound rationale” for using the controversial private public partnership (PPP) process, but there was a “lack of properly resourced and structured scrutiny of the building work at an appropriate level of detail”.

The council did not appoint clerk of works to provide inspection services on the PPP1 schools.

And Mr Cole criticised the council for its “over-reliance” that others would supervise the work.

During the initial “visual” checks after the wall collapse last year, there were no signs of the building defects which, he said, should have been found during construction.

Several of the 66 people interviewed by Mr Cole said cost was a factor in deciding on the level of inspection needed.

He wrote: “The procurers of buildings need to consider whether the drive for faster, lower cost construction may be being achieved to the detriment of its quality and safety.”

Similar defects were found at Trinity High and Duncanrig High in South Lanarkshire, Balfron High in Stirlingshire, and Lourdes Primary in Glasgow after high winds.

Inverclyde Council also reported defects at All Saints Primary in Greenock, Notre Dame High in Greenock, Clydeview Academy in Gourock and Inverclyde Academy in Greenock following the Edinburgh reports.

Issues were also found at five PPP schools in Angus and three in Dundee, however, the names of the schools were not disclosed.

The report also highlighted that St Ninian’s High and Mearns Primary in East Renfrewshire needed remedial work in 2011.

Edinburgh city council has now ordered a full survey of all buildings across the council estate and arranged regular follow-up surveys over the next five years.

City council chief executive Andrew Kerr pledged to set up a working group to follow up on the report’s recommendations.

Mr Kerr said: “The report pulls no punches and makes clear what went wrong, the reasons for it and where responsibility lay.

“Clearly there are lessons for the council and I will now be drawing up an action plan to take our recommendations forward to ensure everyone can have confidence in the safety of all of our buildings.

“The council, our public and private sector partners, both in Scotland and across the United Kingdom, need to take on board the issues raised and address the concerns highlighted in the report as they have far-reaching implications for the construction industry.”

Mr Kerr said he was pleased that Mr Cole agreed with the decision to completely close the schools.

The alternative arrangements made for the pupils were described in the report as a “remarkable feat”.

Mr Kerr thanked parents for their patience and praised the “outstanding efforts” of teachers and other council staff to continue the children’s education.

He added: “We must ensure that the highest possible standards are adhered to when it comes to future construction projects and ensure that nothing like this can happen again.

“It would not be sensible to think this is just a schools problem. This is not just an Edinburgh problem. We think there are implications in here for the rest of the UK.”

A spokesman for ESP said: “We have fully co-operated with the council and Professor Cole in trying to establish the facts of what happened with the schools affected.

“Having only just received a copy of the report, we will now take time to consider its findings in detail before commenting further.”

The city council green party’s education spokeswoman Melanie Main said: “There are huge lessons to be learned by the council, by the construction industry and by the Scottish Government so that children and young people can be guaranteed schools which are safe.

“But behind all of that is an even more fundamental question. It is the sheer complexity of PPP contracts, PFI, Scottish Futures Trust, whatever we label them, which heightens the risk of all of these failings.

“I believe it is time to cut the complexity, cut the layers of buck-passing responsibility and put public bodies directly in charge of public buildings.”

Kevin Stewart, minister for housing and local government, said he was “very concerned” by some of the findings.

He said: “I have spoken with Mr Kerr, to ask about the actions they are taking to address the issues raised and ultimately ensure the safety of pupils and staff across the city.

“I look forward to seeing the council’s detailed action plan which must address the report’s recommendations and I have asked for regular updates on the progress of those actions.”

Mr Stewart said he had written to all authori

ties to stress the points and recommendations about compliance and fire-stopping, as well as the importance of adhering to building regulations and standards.

He added: “I have been clear with local authorities that any instance of non-compliance is completely unacceptable.

“As I consider this report in full, I will be looking at the system with which we hold building owners, developers and compliance authorities to account during construction.

“I am determined that we do all we can at both local and national level to ensure the building standards regime is as strong as possible and crucially that it is complied with to ensure the safety of our public buildings.”