Schools of thought
On your behalf, I have been adding to the workload of civil servants within the Scottish Government.
You'll remember a rumbling rammy over .
In essence, Labour has accused the SNP of failing to commission a single school during its time in office.
In return, Alex Salmond says umpteen schools are under construction, nearing completion or already open to receive the happy, smiling offspring of voters.
Ah, says Labour, but those projects were started when we were in office. You've just benefited from our foresight. Have not. Have too.
Now, this is a complicated business. Does a school project start when:
• The heidie fancies a new building - and says so to the council
• A business plan is prepared
• Planning permission is granted
• Contracts are signed
• Funding is signed off
• Work begins
In search of clarity or, at best, a little less obfuscation, I asked the Scottish Government to provide examples of school projects where both the decision to proceed and construction had commenced under the present administration.
Civil servants laboured mightily, poring through their records and those of local authorities.
The Government returned to me with an initial - I stress, initial - list of five schools which met those criteria. They are as follows:
Dunning: decision to proceed, Oct 2007. Construction commenced, Nov 2007.
Kingspark: decision to proceed, Nov 2008. Construction commenced, Jan 2009.
Inveralmond: decision to proceed, Jan 2008. Construction commenced, May 2008.
James Young: decision to proceed, Jan 2008. Construction commenced, May 2008.
St Kentigern's: decision to proceed, Jan 2008. Construction commenced, Feb 2008.
In order, those schools are in Perthshire, Dundee, Livingston, Livingston and Blackburn.
Before publishing this list, I thought I would check this morning to see whether any more had emerged. More, indeed.
The Scottish Government has now broadened the definition somewhat to cover schools where the contract was signed under the present team. It includes the five above.
The new information this time features: South Lanarkshire, phase two of £850m project to replace 108 and refurbish 16 of 124 primary schools by 2016.
In other words, this is a continuing scheme, crossing the election. School contracts signed during the present administration are given as:
Our Lady & St Annes: contract date, June 2007
Craigbank: contract date, June 2007
St Blanes: contract date, June 2007
St Athanasius: contract date, June 2007
Loch: contract date, June 2007
St Ninian's: contract date, June 2007
Douglas: contract date, July 2007
In Glasgow, the list features those which form part of phase four of a pre-12 strategy involving 16 schools.
The list given to me features the last five of those 16, presumably on the basis that their contracts were signed or due post May 2007. Here they are:
Tinto: contract date, Feb 2008
Govan Riverside: contract date, July 2008
Ruchill: tbc
New Notre Dame: tbc
Hill's trust, Copeland and St Saviour's replacement campus: tbc
And herewith a few more. Firstly, in Dumfries and Galloway:
Cargenbridge: contract date, March 2008
Troqueer: contract date, March 2008
Lincluden: contract date, March 2008
And in Angus:
Seaview: contract date, Nov 2007.
So there you are. Responses welcome, as always.
Update at 1526 GMT:
Didn't have to wait long for Labour's response to the post re the school building programme.
Again, as you'll recall, this has frequently been the source of controversy between Alex Salmond and Iain Gray.
Labour notes, firstly, that the Scottish Government has signally failed thus far to make any use of the Scottish Futures Trust in the schools programme.
Ministers counsel patience.
Now to detail. With regard to the opening list of five schools, they note that these are "traditionally procured" - and thus commissioned by local authorities.
Further, they say that Dunning and the three West Lothian schools were approved by the relevant council before the SNP took office.
Second batch
Further still, they say that Seaview in Angus was approved by the local authority in November 2006, before the Holyrood elections.
Kingspark in Dundee, they concede, was commissioned in November 2008 - but they argue, again, that this was an endeavour by the local authority, not central government.
Other than that, they say that the second batch are PPP schools.
Given the SNP's intrinsice dislike of PPP, Labour argues that means these were "carry-over" projects from before the election: projects, they argue, which were too far advance for the Scottish Government to stop.
Quote: "They are Labour schools."
Again, I pass all this on purely in the interests of information - and without comment.
I'm 
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