More than £300 million has been slashed from council spending on improvement projects for Scotland’s schools and education services.

New figures published by the Scottish Government show that local authority spending on capital projects for education dropped by more than a quarter last year.

Capital expenditure on education was £1.169 billion in 2024/25 but a ‘provisional outturn’ for 2025/26 shows it fell by £332 million to only £837 million.

It is budgeted to rise again to exactly £1.0 billion this year – but this is still £169 million lower than two years ago.

As well as schools, councils are also responsible for nurseries and some local skills projects.

Scottish Conservative education spokesman Meghan Gallacher said: ‘These shocking figures highlight the consequences of the SNP’s brutal and systemic underfunding of Scotland’s councils.

‘It’s unacceptable and shameful that our children and their teachers and carers are being forced to make do with crumbling school and nursery buildings – but that’s the reality when capital spending is cut on such a mammoth scale.

‘Scotland’s councils are hamstrung by years of underfunding by SNP ministers. Local authorities can barely cover day-to-day spending, so it’s inevitable that vital infrastructure projects are being shelved.

'The Nationalists wouldn’t have to impose these cuts if they reined in their out-of-control benefits bill.

‘Crumbling school buildings join the SNP’s litany of failure on education. From broken promises on teacher numbers and Scotland tumbling down international league tables, to the epidemic of classroom violence, the record of John Swinney’s government is dismal.’

The decline in capital spending on education was buried away in a Scottish Government report into the ‘provisional outturn’ for local government in 2025/26 and budget estimates for 2026/27.

General fund net revenue expenditure on local authority day-to-day services was provisionally reported as £16.5 billion in 2025-26 and budgeted as £17.2 billion for 2026-27.

Capital expenditure across local authorities was £4.78 billion in 2024-25 and is provisionally reported to have slumped to £4.46 billion in 2025-26, a decrease of 6.7 per cent. It is budgeted as £5.3 billion in 2026-27.

Scottish Government figures on the school estate showed that 581 schools were in a good condition last year, 1,670 were rated as satisfactory, 189 as poor and six as bad.

Education Secretary Màiri McAllan said: ‘This is a completely inaccurate and desperate attempt by the Tories to talk down Scotland’s excellent education system.

‘The reality is the Budget for 2026-27, which the Tories didn’t even bother to vote for, provides Scotland’s councils with record funding of almost £15.7 billion to deliver vital public services including education.

‘Under the SNP over 1,100 schools have been built or upgraded and the latest statistics show 92 per cent of Scotland’s schools are now in ‘good’ or ‘satisfactory’ condition. That’s up from 62 per cent on our watch.

‘We also have the smallest class sizes in the UK, and our teachers are amongst the best paid. We have record numbers of young people going on to positive destinations and we have record levels of literacy and numeracy in our schools.

‘We’re determined to build on this progress and invest in our schools and teachers, and we’ll do this without balancing the books on the backs of the most vulnerable in our society.’