Chamber and committees

Soft services, such as cleaning, catering etc, have always been excluded from all non-profit distributing and hub design-build-finance-maintain projects to increase flexibility and learn lessons from the past. There will be no change in any revised structure.

No changes are anticipated to the level of unitary charge payable by procuring bodies for the majority of non-profit distributing or hub funded developments. For those projects where capital contributions are no longer being made by the public sector, unitary charge payments will increase commensurately though it is anticipated this will have a relatively small effect across the programme.

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-26455 on 31 July 2015. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

The non-profit distributing model is a form of public-private partnership that has been designed to deliver better value for money to the public sector and the taxpayer than previous public-private partnership/private finance initiative deals. This has always been the case.

At the start of the year, it was anticipated that the following projects would reach financial close as set out in the following table:

Month	Project
January	Forfar Academy
February	Inverclyde Health Centre, Baldragon Academy
March	NHS Lothian Bundle, Newbattle High School, Anderson High School, Kelso High School, Elgin High School
April	-
May	-
June	Barrhead High School, Our Lady and St Patricks High School

Forfar Academy reached financial close in June 2015 following completion of an early construction works package and the Anderson High School is due to reach financial close shortly. Other projects have been delayed by a combination of changes to Eurostat guidance and project specific issues. It is too early to provide revised dates for reaching financial close.

Legal advice was provided by Pinsent Masons to the Scottish Futures Trust and the hub programme public bodies on a confidential basis.

These were published by Scottish Futures Trust and the participating public authorities in the Official Journal of the European Union on 17 June 2015.

The procuring authority will own the assets.

The eight hub design-build-finance-maintain (DBFM) projects that had been due to reach financial close by the end of 2014-15 had not reached financial close by 31 March 2015. For project specific reasons, the Forfar Academy and Anderson High School Shetland have been allowed to progress to financial close. Elgin High School, Baldragon Academy Dundee, Newbattle High School, Kelso High School, NHS Lothian Health Centre Bundle, and Inverclyde Care Home have been affected by a combination of Eurostat and other project specific programme issues. Other hub DBFM projects due to reach financial close in the early part of the current financial year, Our Lady and St Patricks High School and Barrhead High School, have faced project specific issues and are now also affected by the need for further consideration of the implications of the review by the Office of National Statistics of the classification of the Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route. The length and cost of any delay will only be known when contracts are signed.

The Office for National Statistics has reviewed the classification of the Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route and the wider implications of that review are being considered by the Scottish Government and the Scottish Futures Trust.