While the Building the Education Revolution (BER) Implementation Taskforce has come down hard on NSW and Victoria (BER waste blows out to $1.1bn), Queensland has received a good report from the Taskforce:

The only state government that can claim to have all the attributes of an informed buyer of capital works projects currently is the Queensland Government.

In large part, this relates to Queensland’s retention of a significant Public Works department, which other States once had, too, up until the 1980s, as the Taskforce explains:

Progressively from 1980 this situation changed with an increasing proportion of construction contracts and design being outsourced. This trend accelerated in the 1990s. Internal staff numbers in public works departments were significantly reduced and the public works day labour workforce was severely reduced in all jurisdictions other than Queensland.

The last decade has witnessed some restitution of capacity, especially in road design and construction via graduate recruitment and increased emphasis on ensuring in-house professional staff gain ‘hands on’ experience. The Taskforce conducted interviews with a wide range of stakeholders including current and former senior public works executives and this together with our research informs our view that today the only government with a full range of public works expertise is Queensland.

The Taskforce did fail one Queensland project on value for money grounds, however: the Multi-purpose Hall at Boyne Island State School (pictured below), which cost $1.89M compared with the benchmark cost of $1.35M.

The Queensland Education department is disputing the Taskforce’s assessment, however, noting that the $1.89M also includes the costs of sports and AV equipment, landscaping and other improvements, which are not included in the benchmark cost.