While public-private partnerships (PPP) for building and maintaining new school property in New Zealand sound "seductive" to Otago school principals, they are sceptical and say they will keep a close eye on the Government initiative.
PPPs in schools came a step closer yesterday, with the Government announcing it will create a detailed business case, and a tender process could start early next year, subject to Cabinet approval.
Infrastructure Minister Bill English said initial investigations showed building some new school property through a PPP could result in a modest saving over traditional methods, as well as offering some educational benefits.
He believed PPPs would expose the public sector to new methods of asset management and procurement, helping it raise its game.
Education Minister Anne Tolley said under the PPP system, the land would be owned by the Government, while the board of trustees would remain in charge of the governance and daily running of the school.
"The private sector partner would be responsible for financing, building, managing and maintaining the property for a set term.
This means the school and its board could focus more on teaching and learning, without the added responsibility of managing the property.
"The private-sector partner would carry the risk around time-consuming and expensive problems like leaky buildings, and be required to sort them out quickly, or suffer a financial penalty."
Mrs Tolley said the increased focus on long-term costs and getting the best possible price would reap benefits for taxpayers in the future.
Otago Primary Principals' Association president Jenny Clarke said the rationale presented sounded seductive.
However, she said schools could not determine the benefits and pitfalls of the proposal until they had read research from other countries using PPPs.
"Generally, private enterprise is firstly beholden to its shareholders, and that creates tensions between state provisions such as health and education, where taxpayers feel some ownership and entitlement for the taxes they are paying.
"Nor should we be thinking this is a way to resolve challenging time-consuming and expensive problems like leaky buildings.
"Cost-cutting created the leaky homes situation, and we will have no absolute reassurance that this model is not at the risk of cost-cutting to improve profitability."
Mrs Tolley has said trustees, teachers and communities will be closely involved in projects given the go-ahead.
However, Mrs Clarke said schools' experiences to date with significant changes in education under National, had been exclusion rather than inclusion.
"At this stage OPPA would want more information before making further comment on the proposal."
It was a sentiment supported by Otago Secondary Principals' Association chairwoman Julie Anderson.
New Zealand Educational Institute national executive member Ian Leckie said experience overseas showed public-private partnerships could result in poorly maintained buildings and jeopardise school and community access to facilities.
He said there was no evidence to suggest PPPs delivered a significant cost benefit to taxpayers.
"The Australian example it gives is a 2% saving, which is negligible."
