ONE of the early initiatives of the first SNP government elected in 2007 was to scrap Labour’s obsession with Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) that had locked Scotland into decades of over-priced debt.

PFI was a typically Tory initiative – shiny new vehicles with the real price tag well-hidden on the never-never, a clapped out engine beneath the bonnet and a huge profit for the spivs who sold them to the unsuspecting public.

It was taken up with gusto by new Labour and deployed on an eye watering scale that made billions for high finance and made paupers of the public purse.

READ MORE: Pat Kane: With empathy we can triumph over fascism

PFI schools and hospitals were generally poorly built with every corner cut and every inch of space saved. The finance charges were of credit-card excess and the hidden costs legendary.

School corridors had no room to shake a stick never mind safely accommodate boisterous youngsters while health boards found themselves charged for water provision for their patients!

I first proposed that the then Scottish Executive should scrap its use of PFI back in 1999 and suggested its comprehensive replacement by the use of public bond issues. That system would also have been hugely cheaper than PFI and would have also left our assets in the hands of the state at the end of the 30-year borrowing period, rather than in the hands of the lenders.

It was a rather imaginative way of ending the rip-off of PFI as early as 25 years ago to fund new assets. The then powers of the Scottish Parliament proved inadequate to effect that revolution and so on assuming office I moved the new government onto a slightly different tack.

When the SNP came to power I set about establishing the Scottish Futures Trust (SFT). This became our own state company used to introduce Non-Profit Distributing (NPD) Schemes, which removed the glaring excess profits. But most important of all, the formation of the SFT reversed the power balance which had existed under PFI.

Instead of experienced PFI negotiators ripping off hapless local councils for minor school programmes, the financial talent was recruited for the public purse who bought Scotland’s new buildings in bulk. The result was programmes of schools and hospitals “for the future” built to a higher standard and significantly better value.

READ MORE: Owen Jones: Labour will only do right thing on Palestine if we up the pressure

Some estimates point to a 40% increase in the efficiency of capital – in other words, when allowing for higher quality the difference was totally transformational.

We created five regional hubs between 2010 and 2012. Many of the new schools built across Scotland were built using these hubs. Ridding Scotland of PFI helped the Scottish Government embark on its ten year school plan that resulted in the construction of 117 new or hugely refurbished schools benefitting tens of thousands of pupils across Scotland.

If you travel around Scotland you’ll see why I am proud of the record of the 2007 government. New schools built. Motorways extended. Building the Queensferry Crossing, the Aberdeen Bypass and the Borders railway.

And we carried this through while protecting the free bus pass, scrapping toll charges, prescription charges and the Bedroom Tax in Scotland and ensuring the right of every young person in Scotland to attend university and college without facing tuition charges.

And all this in the aftermath of a global financial crash which saw credit for capital programmes dry up across Europe. Indeed when the SFT negotiated finance for the M80 improvements around 2010, I believe it was the biggest road project in Europe that year!

Thanks to the Scottish Futures Trust coming on line it meant that I was able to offer shovel-ready projects and the finance to deliver them. Only a few of the greatest projects were achieved by NPD finance.

READ MORE: Concerns Glasgow will be targeted in far-right disorder this weekend

But the general use of the instrument created the room in the hard-pressed capital budget to, for example, negotiate the Queensferry Crossing using direct finance and thus allowing it to come in hundreds of millions under budget.

The incoming Tory government were jealous of the success of the Scottish NPD and moved to restrict its use in 2014. However instead of fighting the issue toe-to-toe with the Treasury, as well as devising other financial instruments to carry forward the capital programme, recent Scottish Ministers have effectively given up the ghost.

Just as they signed up Scotland to foolish financial settlements which are no better than straitjackets they lost the hard won advantage in capital projects which underpinned the economic progress of the first nationalist administration.

The Scottish Futures Trust capital programme was central to the Scottish Government’s entire public-sector renewal strategy. And I was lucky to benefit from the support of some first-class ministers such as Neil in making the strategy work.

Unfortunately for Scotland there has been no-one of his financial acumen in office for some considerable time. Someone who, for example, might have revived the concept of public capital bonds when world interest rates were at rock bottom.

And what are the tangible political results of this loss? It means that the current SNP government are left defenceless when the Highlands ask the very reasonable question of why the A9 has been left as a killer road and not duelled as the administration of 2007 promised and indeed would have delivered.

Because the key to success back in 2007 was not just in abolishing Labour’s PFI but the political strength, imagination and creativity to bring in something better in its place, to begin building a new Scotland.