The City of Edinburgh Council has found 19 more faults similar to those uncovered following the collapse of a wall at Oxgangs Primary School in the city in January 2016.
A new report from the Accounts Commission for Scotland revealed that of 154 council buildings it had inspected by the end of January this year, a total of 19 had been identified as having similar issues.
The buildings affected included schools, libraries, community centres and care homes, and remedial works are “ongoing” on those sites, it said.
An exercise to review all council buildings and extensions constructed since 1995 was due to be completed by the end of last month.
The report emphasised the importance of all councils undertaking regular, comprehensive structural risk assessments and inspections on public buildings and warned that the incident at Oxgangs could have had “life-threatening” consequences.
The Accounts Commission said in a statement: “Where a council employs a company to provide construction services, it’s vital that it puts in place appropriate checks and controls.”
Grant Sharp, chair of the Accounts Commission added: “The City of Edinburgh Council responded quickly and comprehensively to the wall collapse at Oxgangs Primary School. However, all councils in Scotland must ensure public buildings in their care are regularly checked and appropriately maintained.
“While reduced resources mean councils must make difficult decisions about service provision, they should have an appropriate level of expertise to deliver and safely maintain buildings. People must have confidence in the safety and integrity of public buildings.”
The issues were originally discovered after problems in the construction of a wall at Oxgangs Primary were revealed after the building was damaged in a storm in January 2016.
Checks on it and three other schools then confirmed more problems.
Edinburgh Council then took action to close 17 schools, all of which were about ten years old and were built by Miller Construction under the same £360m PPP contract.
It found fault in all of the schools – five secondaries, ten primaries and two additional support needs schools – and announced the news in April 2016.
The defects discovered in the Edinburgh PPP schools were among several failings which prompted the Chartered Institute of Building to launch a ‘call for evidence’ on quality in 2017. The findings, released in March, showed that three-quarters of construction professionals think current quality management process are inadequate.
