School Maintenance Program

Mr McBRIDE (MacKillop) (14:52): My question is to the Minister for Education. Would the minister please inform the house what he is doing to address the Auditor's concern regarding the cost of construction and maintenance in South Australian schools?

The Hon. B.I. BOYER (Wright—Minister for Education, Training and Skills) (14:52): Thank you to the member for MacKillop for this question, and a timely one it is too. I am sure many members of this place will have heard comments and commentary made recently about the whole-of-government facilities maintenance contract we have, currently run by Ventia, which was a contract signed under the former government.

I know that the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport recently made some strong comments regarding the nature of that contract, and I must say I agree with those. My own observation, as the Minister for Education who has visited hundreds of schools right around the state in every corner of the state, is that almost the only consistent thing raised with me across each one of those schools or preschools is that there is a general lack of satisfaction with the way that that contract is currently managed by Ventia. We are talking about delays—

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis interjecting:

The Hon. B.I. BOYER: Yes, not our contract, this one. We are, unfortunately, locked into it by virtue of the former government signing it and, of course, we are now feeling the effects of what is—I think the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport referred to it as 'a dog of a contract'. I've got to say, if people in this place had spoken to as many school leaders as I have—so many of whom have raised the same issue around timeliness of repairs to important things and the cost of repairs. I've got to say, it's the cost of repairs which can really come back to bite schools as well.

If this is general maintenance that schools are covering through their own infrastructure fund, their SASIS fund, and they are being, in their own words, overcharged for that work, well, that's money that that school doesn't have for future works. The member for MacKillop knows all too well, as does, I would say, every single member of this place who no doubt has a public school or public schools in their electorate, the kind of basic and fundamental maintenance that they need done.

With every bit of work that is done under this contract, which perhaps costs more than it should, that is another bit of funding that we don't have to do another school or do further work at that school. I raised this issue personally upon meeting the person who at that stage was the new head of Ventia, or managing the contract in South Australia. Upon meeting that person, I think my words were something along the lines of, 'I think you have a lot of work to do. The reputation of your organisation here in South Australia amongst schools is not a good one.' I have to say, to that person's credit, they acknowledged that and said they wanted to turn it around. That is a good first step, but we haven't seen that yet.

Perhaps I could just let the member for Mackillop know a few of the things that we are trying to do. We have put in place an improvement plan between the Department for Education and Ventia on the back of surveys conducted on the level of satisfaction of service delivery, which, it won't surprise anyone after my earlier comments, were not very good. That plan will focus efforts on preventative maintenance, which is really important now for a few reasons but particularly because the average age of a building in the public education system is 44 years and still going north.

Off the top of my head, I think the amount that we are spending on essentially fixing up dilapidated stock has gone up in the last few years something like $80 million to $120 million. That's not the best use of that money because that is fixing up stock that has most likely passed the end of its use-by date. We have increased attendance by Ventia and department staff at department forums, which is considered crucial to a partnership approach. We are making sure that every time something is raised when we go and visit a school, whether it's the chief executive or me, we are in contact with Ventia to make sure that things are followed up.

I will just finish by saying that we are aware of the concerns, we share your concerns, and so does the minister responsible for managing the contract, and we are committed to doing something about it.

The SPEAKER: Before I call the member for Newland, I welcome back the member for Morialta. I had a bit of a change of heart. I was missing him, so I thought we would get him back with 15 minutes left on the clock.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Thank you. I'm sure everyone missed him. You are always very welcome. The member for Newland.