NSW Treasury awards itself full marks

By Sally Edsall

The NSW Treasury, one of the major proponents of the Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) program for building new schools, has recently conducted a review of the project, and given the project a glowing report.

Media releases at the time the PPP program was proposed announced that the benefits of the program were that new schools would be delivered years in advance of when they otherwise might. No one ever bothered to explain why this couldn't be achieved under traditional funding arrangements, if the government made a policy decision to make funds available. Who could be surprised, then, that Treasury has regurgitated, whole, this view in the executive summary of its report.

The review has decided that all has gone swimmingly and everyone is happy.

Federation made an extensive submission, prior to the first round of PPPs, which saw many of the contractual failures of similar projects in the United Kingdom and Canada kept in check. Federation always argued, however, that the Government would be "on their best behaviour" in the first round, operating in the same way as a "loss leader" product in a supermarket may get the punters in, sell them an appealing product, and then use it as a thin wedge to subsequently alter conditions.

Several of the recommendations in the Treasury review point in precisely this direction.

It is asserted that principals have been "freed up" from dealing with maintenance and cleaning matters and the like. Therefore Treasury recommends making an estimate of the benefit of additional time which principals are able to devote to educational matters and placing a monetary value on that time, which would make future PPPs a more attractive proposition financially. This is the ultimate bean counters' view of human effort.

Federation and other unions campaigned to ensure that school general assistants remained public employees, and remained with the schools. Treasury recommends that a review of general assistant duties be undertaken to "avoid duplication".

One of the supposed benefits of the project was to be earning revenue through third party use, in particular Outside Of School Hours (OOSH) Care through the privately-operated child care centres build as part of the project. This has proved to be unsuccessful, and DET is formally terminating and/or amending the agreement in relation to the OOSH provision.

What this means is that the Government is paying for child care centres which are operated by a profit-making childcare business, and there are no benefits derived to the schools themselves. Treasury suggests that "some service provision, such as OOSH, may be best handled at the school level". In other words, the private provider has failed, and so the responsibility is thrown back to the school.

The full document can be read at the Treasury website: www.treasury.nsw.gov.au.

Sally Edsall is a Research Officer.

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