'Bordering on crisis': Govt to investigate school property system

A new inquiry will investigate and address problems with the school property system, the Government has announced.

It will cover the system where the "scope of property works planned was unrealistic and unaffordable".

The announcement was made at the post-Cabinet news conference in the Beehive Theatrette this afternoon.

Education Minister Erica Stanford said the coalition Government had inherited a school property system "bordering on crisis".

“There have been a number of cost escalations and some schools expecting exciting, bespoke building projects that are not able to be delivered on," she said.

“Within weeks of forming a Government, the Ministry of Education had already paused 20 building projects and informed me that there could be up to 350 projects in various stages, from design through to pre-construction, where expectations far exceeded what could delivered."

Former prime minister and Labour leader Chris Hipkins responded to the announcement, calling the move a "desperate attempt" by the new government to cut school building projects.

Stanford said it was deeply concerning that many of the projects, years in the planning, were "not underpinned by a value-for-money approach from the beginning".

“Additionally, that some were mere weeks away from shovels in the ground, even though the funding available hadn’t been managed well enough to meet what schools understood had been approved.

“Rightly teachers, principals, students and the communities would have been excited about these projects – only to have them facing uncertainty mere weeks before they were due to start."

She said that was disruptive to teaching and learning and "deeply unfair" for schools to have their expectations raised only to be let down due to "poor processes".

“One example of this is the Te Tātoru o Wairau Marlborough schools co-location project which had years of cost escalations with construction estimates of up to $405 million, despite originally only having $170 million allocated by Cabinet in 2018.”

“There is a clear need to review the school property system to evaluate the sustainability and efficiency of current arrangements and ensure we can deliver the school property our children deserve, while protecting taxpayers from further inefficiencies and poor value for money.”

A Government statement said the aim was for reviewers to report back in three months. A lead reviewer and review team will be appointed imminently.

Hipkins said the cost escalations were not unexpected and claimed the Government was looking for an "excuse" to get out of classroom upgrades.

"The school upgrades announced by our government were made on Ministry of Education advice and were based on condition assessments," he said.

"The process for school building work was changed under the last National government and we continued the approach they put in place. Cost escalations in the building sector have been a fact of life.

"National were told before the election they hadn't allowed enough for cost escalations in their fiscal plan and chose to ignore that and claim tax cuts were affordable. They aren't and now it looks like kids will be the latest to pay the price."

He added: "This is a desperate attempt to create an excuse to cut much-needed school building projects. National are choosing to prioritise tax cuts over classrooms for children.

"Everyone will remember children learning in damp, mouldy classroom and schools with no space and no funding under National, who were comfortable with kids being taught in gyms and hallways. We don't want to go back to that.

"Labour upgraded every school in the country through the school investment package. We built thousands of classrooms and added urgent temporary teaching spaces as rolls grew."