Time for schools to learn new lessons

How many general managers are employed to manage and expand a business and end up burning up time on routine administration? Things are worse in school management, which, you will notice, has never been used as a metaphor for business management. Anthills, rugby teams and military organisations, yes, but schools, no.

One of the worst aspects of school management is the amount of time demanded from principals for the use of their skills, not as educationalists, but as building and maintenance managers. That, and the need to raise funds to cover educational and physical necessities, is the bane of many principals' - and parents' - lives.

At a recent conference on public-private partnerships (PPPs), Dr Jim Livingstone of the Northern Ireland Department of Education gave an illuminating presentation on the use of the private sector to solve these problems in principals' lives.

In Northern Ireland, the private sector is being engaged to manage the operation and maintenance of school "plant" in seven model projects. It is more than just contracting for maintenance: the approach under Britain's Private Finance Initiative (PFI) is to contract with a private sector consortium to design, build, finance and operate new schools. The private sector consortium is bound by specific performance measures on the operation and maintenance of school buildings, such as the maintenance of minimum temperatures in classrooms, the 100 per cent operation in school term of essential rooms such as toilets, while store rooms have to meet lower operational times. If performance is not met, the consortium is not paid its full fee.

If a principal has a problem with a maintenance matter, he or she doesn't have to organise the solution, but simply has to call the contract manager. The goal is to cut the 4060 per cent of principals' time spent on building management, and to allow them get on with their real job of education management.

From a financing point of view, this Northern Ireland approach involves the state swapping the payment of what has been called a "lumpy", uncertain capital amount up-front, for a regular, predictable stream of payments to the consortium operator. This is a typical PFI model. In the Republic, you don't hear it said much that we have a lot to learn from Northern Ireland. The management of schools certainly has something to note from the Northern initiative. Since a Catholic school has been included in the first Northern school PFI projects, the negotiation over issues such as title to land and buildings which took place with Catholic trustees should find application in the Republic, if private financing becomes involved.

The Department of Education here is examining ways to use a PPP approach. There is interest in using private sector expertise to manage building operations and maintenance. This should happen well before the end of the year.

In Northern Ireland, Dr Livingstone explained that there was a £550 million capital expenditure backlog. So far, in the Republic, an official view would be that there is no need for private capital, since schools capital spending at £120 million this year is judged to be sufficient for the State's needs. I wonder how many school principals, parents and teachers would agree. We no more have a first-class social infrastructure than we have a first-class physical or transport infrastructure. Will we get one with present capital spending plans?

It is not sufficient reason to bring in private capital that public capital spending is not enough in any one year to meet needs. The best option could be to increase public sector capital spending. That will not always be possible. Everyone interested in the wider application of the PPP concept in the Republic accepts that value for money must be demonstrated. A value for money analysis must take account of the benefits of allowing public sector specialist employees, such as school principals, do what they are really employed for.

The Northern Ireland PPP should free principals from raising funds for routine requirements. In voluntary schools in the Republic, the capitation grant per pupil (£60 per pupil in primary school, £184 per pupil in post-primary) just doesn't seem to cover needs. If the State was to pay a consortium to operate and maintain school plant, the temptation would be to cut back on capitation. This would simply reinstate the principal as fund-raiser extraordinaire. There has got to be a better way.

The PPP concept in education can solve problems. No one wants businesses to be run more like schools, or schools more like businesses. They are not good models for each other. But they can surely partner each other for the delivery of the public services we want, need and deserve.

Oliver O'Connor is an investment funds specialist