Demand for action after council inspection prompts security alert in two Stirling schools

dailyrecord.co.uk:

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