'Council letting down vulnerable children'
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Highland Council has been accused of letting down some of the most vulnerable children in its care by allowing the "disgracefully inadequate" conditions of a Ross-shire primary school for children with special needs to continue.
As calls were made by a local councillors for all parties to push together for the benefit of St Clement’s in Dingwall, a fed-up parent warned the most vulnerable children have been let down for years in a school deemed "not for purpose" by a government minister.
Parent council member Christyna Ferguson, whose daughter attends the school, said campaigners were tired of "empty promises" about the school being a priority and bickering over who should pick up the bill for a replacing a building widely regarded as inadequate for modern-day education.
She said Highland Council has had decades to improve matters. She said: "Our children are subject to appalling conditions. Only today my daughter had to sit in her classroom with her coat and hat on as it was so cold. A classroom that incorporates the staff toilet and staff room. To avoid the staff room, children are having to go in and out of the classroom via outdoors."
Dingwall and Seaforth ward councillor Angela MacLean invited children’s minister Maree Todd and the area’s MSP, Kate Forbes, to support a push for funding for a replacement. Ms MacLean said: "I think the staff do a fantastic job and it is incumbent on us to try and get a solution and all work together. Having it on the capital programme with a reduced capital budget has been difficult but everyone who has seen it knows it is badly needing replaced. Whether it be Scottish Government or Highland Council we all have to work together. Given the children that go to St Clement’s, it does make it more urgent because they are our most vulnerable young people."
Mrs Todd, a Ross-shire-based Highlands and Islands MSP, declared the school not fit for purpose when she visited this year.
She said she’d be "more than happy" to meet local councillors but added: "As a member of the ruling administration, Ms MacLean will know that St Clement’s had not previously been prioritised by Highland Council in their capital spending plans.
"Since my visit to St Clement’s this year Highland Council has now prioritised it. Should they require my support in making further progress, I am happy to help."
Dingwall-based MSP Kate Forbes previously described the school "as like something out of Oliver Twist".
She said: "Highland Council’s plans for school buildings seem to be entirely reliant on additional Scottish Government funding when it is the council who has statutory responsibility for school buildings and their annual budget settlement recognises that."
She said Highland Council had been the second highest beneficiary of the Scottish Government’s Schools for the Future funding scheme, receiving £63million. The next school buildings funding programme is expected by the end of the year.
Renewing an appeal for progress, Ms Ferguson warned of "promises broken and deadlines long passed" and accused the council of breaking the law over conditions. She said: "Our children face another winter in cold classrooms having to go out in all weathers to access already disgracefully inadequate facilities – it’s shameful."
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