Safety measures have been tightened up at two Stirling schools after auditors were able walk straight into the buildings and move around freely.
The worrying situation occurred during a sample exercise carried out by Stirling Council’s internal auditors to check the security of the authority’s buildings.
The team visited 13 council buildings - eight operational premises and five educational establishments - to test physical security.
They gave “substantial assurance” that eight of the buildings and two educational establishments were secure and/or controlled at all times, and “limited” assurance” for another educational setting.
But they could give “no assurance” for the two remaining unnamed schools visited.
Reporting to the council’s audit committee last Thursday, the auditors said: “For two of the educational establishments we visited we can provide ‘no assurance’ that the premises were safe, secure and had effective arrangements in place at the time of our visit to prevent unauthorised access and to ensure the safety and security of people and assets.
“We were able to gain access to both premises through an unlocked door and to walk around both premises unchallenged.”
The auditors checked whether access points to buildings and premises were secure and/or controlled at all times to provide authorised access and to prevent unauthorised access.
Tory councillor Rachel Nunn asked what urgent steps had been taken on security as a result of the findings.
Audit service manager Gordon O’Connor said: “The driver behind that work was really to test the arrangements we have to keep people safe.
“The aim of the audit was to assess the extent to which we could gain access to buildings and secondly could we gain access once we were challenged.
“For the two premises referred to, the two schools we could gain access to and move around unchallenged.
“An action plan has been agreed with the service around specifics and specific action taken to address that, some is around training, some is around security infrastructure in schools, staff awareness etc.”
Early years officer Judy Edwards said: “For each of the settings there has been action plans, staff training, working with each of the heads of the establishments, and the actions which were planned have now all been undertaken to ensure that building security is paramount.
“One of the actions was to review critical incident plans.
“With particular establishments as mentioned there were individual actions agreed. For one of the establishments there was a session for staff in the first week of the return to school, ensuring all had identification badges on, no doors were left open and every member of staff was aware of the protocol around keeping the building safe.
“For the other establishment it was the same and we have been assured that all staff are aware of the responsibilities now, including catering and janitorial staff, and badges will be checked and critical plans updated.”
Both Councillor Nunn and committee chair Councillor Scott Farmer sought assurances that further visits and reports would be carried out on an ongoing basis.
Chief governance officer Julia McAfee said: “For the assurance for members, this is the first audit of its kind from the audit team, who went out and visited premises to check access - and it was clearly a very worthwhile exercise. It’s proved its worth.
“This is something that Gordon and I have been talking about doing on an annual basis to ensure we are keeping this up and focusing on this.”
Councillor Farmer said: “Obviously building security is extremely important to ensure our staff and all those in these buildings are as secure as possible.”
