5.10.1 The enforced closure of the 17 projects with immediate effect set in train a huge, logistical task of a scale that normal emergency planning processes could not reasonably have been expected to deal with. It involved putting in place as quickly as possible alternative accommodation for the education of approximately 7,600 primary and secondary pupils, 740 nursery pupils and the relocation of 655 teachers.
5.10.2 To do so required the coordinated and concentrated input of:
• all the Senior Management Team and most of the Departments, teams and staff within the Council;
• ESP and Amey Communities in relation to their on-going responsibility for providing facility management services to the schools;
• the head teachers, teaching and related staff who worked in the buildings affected;
• the head teachers and staff of other schools who would be required to assist in accommodating the decanted pupils; and
• many other agencies from both the public sector and private sector willing to offer available resources and/or expertise required.
5.10.3 It also required significant effort, inconvenience and time on the part of many parents and pupils in helping to make the alternative arrangements work effectively.
5.10.4 On the evening of 10th April 2016, the Communities and Families Directorate of the City of Edinburgh Council invited the Head Teachers of the schools affected to attend a meeting on Monday 11th April 2016, the day the schools had been due to return from the Easter break. The Heads were given a better understanding of the issues and the benefit of their experience and expertise was sought in assisting with the development of proposals for the alternative arrangements required.
5.10.5 A communications strategy managed by the City of Edinburgh Council, using a range of media, was put in place to provide schools, parents and children with essential information in relation to the closures and alternative arrangements. This was an area throughout the period of the decant that the Council constantly sought to focus on, recognising the importance of information to concerned parents and teachers. In the earlier stages of the process the Council were somewhat frustrated in these good intentions by the on-going lack of clear information from ESP as to a programme for the completion of the remedial works and the reopening of the schools that could be relied upon.
5.10.6 The Inquiry was advised that a key part of the relocation strategy adopted by the City of Edinburgh Council was to give priority to those pupils at the High Schools, particularly pupils in S4 - S6 who would be sitting examinations. This situation was helped by the fact that in the case of Firrhill, Royal High and Drummond High Schools, significant parts of the original schools had been retained under the original PPP1 development and would be safe to continue occupying if appropriate arrangements were put in place to prevent access by pupils to the parts built under the PPP1 contract.
5.10.7 Priority was also attached to the relocation of pupils from Rowanfield and Braidburn Special Schools for which some of the logistics were more complicated than for the other schools due to the special requirements of some of the pupils.
5.10.8 The emergency arrangements succeeded in having alternative accommodation in place for most pupils by Thursday 14th April 2016, with all affected pupils having access to alternative arrangements by Wednesday 20th April 2016. Monday 18th April had been a public holiday.
5.10.9 To achieve this required the daily use of over 70 coaches for pupils and the facilities of 61 alternative schools (including nurseries and Early Years Centres).
5.10.10 In order to accommodate the number of additional places required at the alternative school locations, the Council had to hire and relocate 24 temporary classrooms many of which had to be transported significant distances from around the country. School furniture and equipment also had to be transferred from the existing schools to the new locations.
5.10.11 Over the following days and weeks, seeking to be responsive to concerns raised by groups of parents or teachers, the City of Edinburgh Council implemented a number of adjustments to the locations of some groups of pupils. As an example of such relocations, following complaints from some parents about the perceived quality of the temporary accommodation their children had been allocated at Wester Hailes Education Centre, the City of Edinburgh Council arranged to relocate 90 Oxgangs Primary School pupils to Niddrie Mill Primary School.
5.10.12 The following table demonstrates the complexity of the logistics required in terms of the number of receiving schools that were required.