A new documentary has painted the most compelling case that a multi million pound deal to build four North Ayrshire schools was not all it appeared to be.

Former SNP MSP Campbell Martin has been working to uncover the real story behind the £380m private finance deal that saw four schools – St Matthew’s Academy, Greenwood Academy, Arran High School and Stanley Primary School - built over the course of the last decade.

The film argues that the tender process fell far short of requirements, complete with claims of fraud and a police investigation dropped before it even began.

However, thanks to a wall of silence put in place by the various players, the issue remains that, even if the claims are true, the question of why remains.

Nevertheless, 10 years on from the first questions over the Public Private Partnership (PPP) The Only Game In Town, presents the most comprehensive case yet.

It will also prove more accessible to anyone interested in the situation but baulked at complexity of the claims hitherto available.

The claims at the heart of the programme is actually quite straightforward. In 2006 North Ayrshire Council sought bids to build four new schools. At the time, public private partnerships and private finance initiatives were de rigour.

Where an authority didn’t have enough capital to finance a development, it could either borrow from a public sector fund or go to the private sector.

One of the key factors for a public body seeking private funding was that business confidentiality placed a veil over proceedings. It also helps authorities keep this debt off the books in a way that a public loan would not.

There was also a perception, at the time, that private companies were better value and more efficient. In any tender the council also have a duty to ensure a competitive element. Having a single bid would mean that the company in question could, to an extent, name their price.

Campbell, along with current independent councillor Ronnie McNicol and former councillor John Hunter sought to ask questions about the tender process, having taken up residents’ objections to the creation of St Matthew’s Academy in Saltcoats.

During their research they began to see anomalies in the bid that had failed to secure the lucrative contract - namely Comprehensive Estate Services.

Had there been no second bid to compete with First Class consortiums, the eventual winner, the contract would be in danger of falling apart. The film states that Comprehensive Estate Services was set up just months before the process began, had little to no staff, capital or experience.

Neither did it have a permanent office, merely a mailing address in Fife. At the time NAC stated that they were actually a subsidiary of a company in Singapore - a claim the documentary says is simply untrue.

It also asserts that the documents used in the bid were merely copies downloaded from the internet.

The film goes on to outline the unwillingness of North Ayrshire Council, then Strathclyde Police and Scottish Executive to pursue the matter. During an interview, one former senior police officer insists that the case should have been looked at seriously.

None of the parties implicated in the claim were willing to give comment to the filmmakers.

You can find the documentary here.