More than £100 million earmarked for Scottish school building projects this year has not been spent, Labour and the Tories have claimed.
Opposition politicians hit out at Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, accusing her of failing to deliver investment planned under the Scottish Government's non-profit distributing (NPD) programme. NPD was developed as a finance model for privately funded infrastructure projects and is an alternative to public private partnerships.
Ms Sturgeon told MSPs that progress on the NPD programmes would "speed up significantly" in the future and there would be more schools than originally planned built under the scheme.
But Labour's Richard Baker demanded: "Why of the £119 million scheduled to be spent on school projects through NPD in 2012-13 the total spend was in fact nothing?"
Mr Baker added that only £62 million was expected to be spent on schools next year, instead of the £150 million originally planned. "This investment is needed now," he said. "Which school projects are being delayed and why?"
Conservative Gavin Brown joined in the attack, saying: "The Cabinet Secretary said NPD progress will speed up over the next few years - it could hardly slow down."
He too pressed Ms Sturgeon on schools spending, and said: "Why was nothing spent this financial year when £119 million was predicted and why is it only going to be £62 million next year when it should be £150 million? Just saying they are complex projects frankly isn't good enough."
Ms Sturgeon said the schools projects would "reach financial close later than had been anticipated". But she insisted: "This is a programme that will be delivered in full."
She told MSPs the NPD programme involved "large, complex projects being procured by a wide range of different procuring authorities".
For this reason she argued there needed to be "sufficient time taken up front in the preparation and design stages", saying this would "deliver better overall value for money".
