Ben Wyvis Primary School Project

Chief Executive Steve Barron said:

“As Chief Executive of The Highland Council and as the previous Director of the Housing and Property Service at the time that the Ben Wyvis Primary School project was planned and undertaken, I would like to add my apologies to those offered by the Director of Development and Infrastructure at today’s Audit and Scrutiny Committee.

“The Audit Report clearly highlights significant failures in the Council’s management of this contract. Local Members have made clear their dissatisfaction with the performance of Council officers and regarding the lack of adequate responses to the issues they raised on behalf of the local community.

“I accept these criticisms and offer my sincere apologies to the communities, to the school staff and to elected Members. I will work with my colleagues across the Council to address all of these issues and to improve our performance.

“Construction projects have inherent risks and the role of designers and project managers is to consider, control and mitigate these risks. For the majority of projects, we do this well, but this is clearly not the case in this project. I intend to write to the Parent Council of Ben Wyvis Primary and to Local Members to apologise for these shortcomings.

“Our aim is to ensure that all projects meet the highest standards. As such, there are comprehensive action plans in place to improve project management, including training and adequate monitoring, as well as capturing learning and a detailed report will be brought to committee in November.”