MORE THAN £22million of work is needed to bring school buildings across West Fife up to standard, according to Fife Council.

Council chiefs confirmed the size of the repair bill after Cowdenbeath MSP Alex Rowley told fellow members of the Scottish Parliament that the Scottish Government must “take responsibility for the maintenance backlog which has developed across Scotland’s school estate”.

Across the Kingdom, more than £60m of “urgent” or “essential” work has been identified, with a further £9.8m of repairs cited as “desirable”.

Although the £22.3m figure revealed for West Fife is not all classed as urgent, Mr Rowley claimed those in power at Holyrood should be looking at ways to work with local authorities to raise funds to carry out essential work while they faced cuts in services to meet budget targets.

He said, “This is not unique to Fife and is a real issue across Scotland. The reason I highlighted this in the Scottish Parliament is that local authorities in current circumstances are finding it almost impossible to raise the funds to bring buildings to an acceptable standard.

“I highlighted the Fife figures and it is important that education ministers start a discussion with local authorities, as my concern is that parliamentarians tend to say to local authorities that it is a devolved matter.

“We need to move on from passing the buck to local authorities. They are having to cut services to meet budgets and there are not a lot of options to raise funds.

"Fife Council are facing major challenges, major investment is needed so we need to get into dialogue with councils.” Council leader David Ross said, “We have done a lot of work new schools, such as Dunfermline High and Carnegie Primary, and there are other schools across Fife where work is under way.

"Safety issues are our highest priority and we carry out regular checks, so we are as confident as we can be that things are safe.

“Of the £60million, we believe work may be required to be carried out within two years, but timescales are variable.

“We need a better way of funding local government and would very much welcome more investment from the Scottish Government.

"This should be a very high priority for them as the children need the best facilities for learning. Our future depends on education to carry forward the economy of Fife.”