Unnecessary job means more taxpayer pain

Taxpayers are being whacked with another hefty bill to satisfy National’s obsession with privatising the construction of new schools, Labour’s Associate Spokesperson for Education Chris Hipkins says.

“The Minister of Education confirmed at a select committee hearing today that her Ministry is now employing a relationship manager for the pilot ‘public-private partnership’ school in Hobsonville at a cost to the taxpayer of $100,000 a year.

“That’s a pretty decent pay packet. It’s also money not at all well spent and follows revelations last month that the $2 million savings the PPP is supposed to achieve has been dwarfed by the $3.5 million cost of developing the business case for it.

“Over the 25 year life of the PPP, the government is now adding an extra $2.5 million in ‘relationship management’ costs. How is that possibly going to be better value for the taxpayer?

“National has argued that privatised school buildings will ‘free-up’ school boards and principals from school property management.

“I’m sure every school in the country would find managing their publicly-owned facilities significantly easier if they too had a $100,000 a year ‘relationship manager’ to take care of it for them.

“The Government’s agenda to privatise anything that they can get their hands on is proving to be a costly failure,” Chris Hipkins said.