Thanks to SB for alerting me to this:
In the wake of her outburst on mike, suggesting she was the only one doing anything over RAAC in schools, BBC Scotland seems to have wind of her coming up to get things going on MacRAAC.
Yesterday, they had:
Earlier, during FMQs questioning by Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, Mr Yousaf said a list of affected schools should be made available by the end of the week, with a ministerial statement to follow.
The first minister said the government was working with local authorities and that discussions would be held with the UK government over extra funding to address the problem.
Education Secretary [England] Gillian Keegan said the Scottish government’s top priority was to ensure the safety of students, pupils and staff.
She added: “Thanks to the hard work of schools, colleges, councils, diocese and academy trusts, the majority of settings where Raac has been confirmed have opened to all pupils for the start of term.”We are expediting surveys and urging all responsible bodies to tell us what they know about Raac, so we can be confident that settings are safe and supported.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-66732152
More devolution creep? Concrete creep!!
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.ijedr.org/papers/IJEDR1404068.pdf
Talking-up Scotland 
“English Education Secretary to get Scottish ministers off their a**ses over RAAC”
So basically ‘another fine mess they have gotten us into’ and it being THEIR mess then they, and their media, expect us to clean up said mess…..that sounds fair…if we lived in Narnia that is…but we do not…..we live in the UK aka a Disunited Kingdom….. that, as a UK, causes so much problems for us in Scotland…problems that THEY instigate via their UK governments….and when the inevitable proverbial you know what HITS the fan….it then becomes OUR problem that somehow is misconstrued, via clever wording and omissions , to then see our government as also being blamed and too culpable for that UK government solely generated problem…..
How long are some within Scotland going to continue to accept their UK bad decisions, incompetence and short term (non) solutions that inflicts so much damage and expense upon us in Scotland before MORE of those Scots decide enough is enough….well going by SOME UK voting polls it seems SOME Scots are willing to do this for a long time yet…..for reasons that seem illogical to us yet to them seems most rational as (un)informed decisions…..do they not know that if you keep doing the same thing over and over again….and it keeps FAILING and letting you down…then perhaps it might be the time to do something DIFFERENT….like say in YOU always voting or changing your vote for/to a UK party and too for a UK state that always let you down….then maybe “NOW IS THE TIME’ to consider changing your vote to (or staying with) the SNP and thus campaigning, supporting and voting for an independent Scotland….I mean you never know until you TRY do you…(as in TRY something different….that as something different that might just , and I suspect probably WILL, give you a both a different result and too a BETTER one)…..win win for us in Scotland that is.
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Lots of reasons, misinformed, some ignorant, some will never let go of their (very much false) sense of Britishness in pretending to keep the lights on, some are new to Scotland, many English folk, and it’s mainly older retired who can afford to move to Scotland, P/T of F/T, who see Scotland as their property, and take advantage of better services in Scotland while keeping one foot in the door of British/English patriotism they will never give up.
Then you have your Scottish folk, I know some, see them very rarely, who just will not give up the ‘Uk’ who wanted to ‘give the Uk one more chance’ in 2014 so voted against Scotland being a normal, independent country. They would no doubt vote ‘no’ again and they just cannot abide the SNP, blame them for everything whether it’s a bout Eng reserved powers or not and they vote for Labour. I despair.
I do fear a GE plebiscite simply because, our 16-17 years olds will be banned from voting as will any EU folk resident in Scotland. The young people need that vote for their own country to be independent, Scotland needs their votes!
Maybe a Scottish election plebiscite if not a referendum, but I fear a GE one…
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My reading of various Guardian articles on the subject reference a primary school in Scotland being (partially?) closed because of Raac in winter 2022 and pupils decanted.
Proof enough that SG has been diligent and quietly working away at the issue.
I also understand that ukg has failed to share with SG the latest evidence which has changed their complacent position even though it was as a result of an inspection of a military school in Perth which is overseen by DfE (England)
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Military school? Do we have such institutions in Scotland? I know the local private school, with lottery funded state of the art science centre, has the teens in army gear, they won’t be near the front line in any wars though that’s for sure.
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Queen Victoria Boarding School, Dunblane funded by the MOD according to scotlandsboardingschools.org.unfortunately
For the children of serving scottish soldiers apparently
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No RAAC was used in the construction of this 👇
https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/angus-mearns/4703278/arbroath-flood-defences-officially-opened/
“Transport and Net Zero Secretary Mairi McAllan has been given a close look at the £12 million defences built to protect hundreds of Arbroath homes from floodwater.”
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As Stewart highlighted upthread (erroneously attributed to SG), the monitoring put in place following the 1990s upset over RAAC is still working well in some parts of the country, but clearly not in others.
If you dig a little deeper into this ‘upset’, you will find HMG had a register of ALL public buildings containing RAAC in the UK since 1994.
Anybody else get the distinct whiff of Eau de Latrine, made in London ?
However, if an unexpected collapse occurred only in one part of England in 2018, why is the media not focussing on why the monitoring failed ONLY there ?
The media have clearly been directed create a national political “crisis”, with politicians being blamed for “not knowing” what they never need know because somebody else was dealing with it
That equally applies to Gillian Keegan seeking to score political capital despite knowing not the first thing about what the actual problem is.
However, returning to the 2018 school roof collapse in Kent, do recollect this was a time when the Tories were still obsessing over Brexit, “cutting red-tape”, and slashing local authority budgets.
With the “cut red-tape” culture doubtless prevalent in Kent, what do you think the chances are RAAC inspections had been cut back or delayed, with disastrous consequences for a school roof ?
As with the Grenfell disaster, the gamble of “cutting red tape” didn’t pay off for the Tories, but at least nobody was killed by it on this occasion.
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Your mention of Grenfell highlights that we have different, usually more stringent, building control standards.
Maybe RAAC was used less often, or only allowed with better waterproofing? I’m just speculating.
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Sorry Drew, but Scotland’s more stringent standards are only part of why there has been no Grenfell in Scotland, we don’t elect Tory Councillors in sufficient numbers to play russian roulette with the public as happened in Kensington.
RAAC was an established product from the 1950s until the 1990s, almost every public building constructed in the UK over 40 odd years would have used it until the balloon went up.
Despite the different building standards, RAAC panel deployment would have been no different, north or south of the border.
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Like I said Bob, I was just speculating.
But with stricter building standards here, RAAC might have been deployed with much better waterproofing.
You can’t on the one hand say that we can’t have a Grenfell scenario because of better standards (firebreaks at floor levels and around openings, as pointed out by our host often enough), then on the other hand assume we’ll have exactly the same problems as England have, but with a different material.
Anyway, we won’t find out until the reports start coming in.
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Sorry again Drew but a waterproof RAAC element will not stick to the adjacent waterproof element with a water-based bond, the top screed likewise. It’s a lot more complicated that it at first appears,
Most RAAC panels were painted in the 1990s to act as a tell-tale the member is under unusual stress – Paint flakes are WAY easier to spot than microscopic cement particles resembling dust.
We do have the same basic problems, the difference is as I suggested, how well or not they are monitored, which in turn relies on ring-fenced budgets to do it, because it’s not “red-tape” but essential.
Likewise your different standards question over Grenfell, because it becomes irrelevant if independent checks and verifications are not done.
Grenfell could have been averted had LFB’s fire assessment officer not been essentially bypassed and the Contractor allowed to self-certify his own work.
THAT could not happen in Scotland because the rules are there for a reason.
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The Tories cut Education funding £6Billions a year from 2015. £48Billion. Am £87Billion loan book. People paying for education. Not the ability to learn. Inequality in the rest of the UK. UK Education spending £100Billion. Sunak cut the school maintenance budget 50%.
The Tories are spending £1060Billion a year. Revenues raised in the UK. £731Billions. Brexit has lost £100Billion+ a year. Scottish Gov has to mitigate the cuts. Military schools on the Defence bill. £42Billion+.
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