Natalie Don MSP has condemned the continuing impact on Renfrewshire Council’s finances of Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contracts, which were introduced by the UK Tory Government and adopted by Labour when they ran the devolved government at Holyrood.

The MSP for Renfrewshire North and West highlighted research from the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICe) which shows the amount being forked out by Renfrewshire Council in 2019/20 was £17million, 10% of its education resource funding.

Natalie Don MSP said: “Horrendously expensive Private Finance Initiative contracts, which were introduced by Westminster Tories and supercharged by Labour-led devolved governments at Holyrood in years gone by, are still impacting on local authorities across Scotland, including Renfrewshire Council.

“The legacy of past decisions taken by Labour at Holyrood and locally when they ran the council administration in Renfrewshire continues to be felt as schools’ budgets are significantly eaten up by the huge ongoing cost of £17million in 2019/20 due to their beloved PFI contracts.

“Thankfully, the SNP scrapped PFI contracts to end taxpayers’ money being wasted in such ridiculously lengthy and costly ways but, unfortunately, we are still stuck with paying the heavy price of disastrous decisions by Labour in previous decades.”