Falkirk Council reveal £1 million overspend on crisis-hit school's extension

Maddiston Primary has now been forced to close for urgent structural repairs.

The auditor’s report on the overspend at Maddiston Primary School was presented to Falkirk Council’s audit committee this week, just days after the council was forced to close the school to pupils for the work to be carried out.

There was no suggestion in the report that the issues with overspending on the school’s extension were in any way linked with the recent closure and chief executive Kenneth Lawrie announced a separate, urgent investigation into the reasons for closure earlier in the meeting.

But the report by Falkirk Council’s internal audit team did find that the overspend had not been identified or reported quickly enough and it raised “significant issues” with the project.

Work to extend Maddiston Primary and build a new early years campus began in November 2020.

The school had opened in 2008 after being built at a cost of £9 million with original capacity for 434 pupils.

However, the opening was delayed several months after the new build was badly damaged by fire.

It had been agreed the extension was necessary after demand for places at Maddiston rose by around 40 per cent between August 2008 and August 2018, leading to four temporary modular buildings being used to satisfy demand.

In 2018, more housebuilding, along with the Scottish Government’s initiative to expand nursery provision for all three and four year olds, meant the project became urgently needed and funding was found from several sources to meet the £4.903 million budget.

The early years campus for up to 100 pupils was built first, followed by the extension which included six new classrooms to accommodate an extra 150 pupils.

The work concluded last August, approximately three years later than planned due to the coronavirus

The audit found that there had been not been a lead project officer for the majority of the project’s duration, which meant there was “limited monitoring of project spend by children’s services and inadequate reporting of budget pressures to finance services”.

The auditors also criticised the lack of an audit trail to confirm that children’s services were challenged on how the project would be financed after bids for extra funding were rejected.

According to the report to Falkirk Council’s audit committee this week, as the project progressed, issues were encountered with higher-than- expected costs.

By March 2024, a budget overspend of nearly half a million pounds had been incurred, and the project was not finished.

Given that the project was at such an advanced stage, it was not feasible to stop the project and extra funding had to be found to cover the shortfall.

An overspend of around £1 million was forecast with extra funding (c£1.163m) agreed by senior management and elected members to address the deficit.

However, an internal audit was requested to find out what had gone wrong.

The audit found that the coronavirus pandemic had caused construction costs to rise sharply which contributed to some of the problem.

It also found that changes had been made to the design brief before work began and then again once construction had started.

The leader of the council, Cllr Cecil Meiklejohn, said she wanted to see what lessons had been learned around contract monitoring “so that it doesn’t happen again”.

Falkirk Council’s head of assets, Paul Kettrick, said there “are now very robust processes in place for the management of works such as these” with monthly monitoring to identify any risks at an early stage.

He admitted that there could have been “more regular and frequent updates” to elected members but added that they have taken all recommendations of the audit report and deployed them all.

The director of communities and corporate services, Karen Algie, added that the council has added a second phase of the audit work to make sure there are robust processes in place if design briefings change in future.

Councillor Anne Hannah asked for more detail on the report’s findings to make sure that “we are getting it right”.

She was assured that the second phase of the audit will also be reported to councillors in the coming year.