3.5.2 Those members of staff or parents of children who gave or submitted evidence to the Inquiry were generally very positive in their opinions on the quality of maintenance of the buildings as undertaken by Amey Facilities Management ("Amey FM", now known as "Amey Communities") since construction. The level of planned and response maintenance was regularly compared positively with their experience of that provided in the schools directly owned and maintained by the Council.
3.5.3 It should be noted that the City of Edinburgh Council are under a contractual obligation to pay for the provision of the maintenance and upkeep of the PPP1 schools to the specified standard and at the level of cost built into the unitary charge as agreed in the PPP1 Project Agreement. Unfortunately, there is no similar obligation in relation to the Council-owned schools, which do not receive the same level of budgetary allowance from the City of Edinburgh Council for their maintenance.
3.5.4 In relation to the issue of whether the defective wall construction should have been found earlier by Amey FM, the Inquiry were advised that in the period immediately following the collapse of the wall at Oxgangs School, several firms of professional structural consultants undertook visual surveys of the external walls of all 17 schools without reporting any visible signs that would suggest defective construction. Without any such outwards signs of distress, the only time that this defect could and should have been found was at the time that the schools were being constructed through a process of proper supervision and inspection of the work in question.
3.5.5 The view of the Inquiry in relation to whether the breaches of fire-stopping in the schools as described in the survey reports should have been discovered earlier is quite different. These breaches, if originating from the construction stage, should have been identified either by the original contractors or by Building Standards inspectors at final inspection stages, and if not then they should have been identified by Amey FM acting in their facilities management role through regular inspections of the integrity of the fire-stopping in the building.