Now Tell Me.com

I am not impressed by the report on the BER.  I don’t think it gives an accurate explanation of what went wrong or why or how things could be done better.  It is just a politically biased summary to appease the masses.

The real story behind the BER is simple.  As any builder, or anyone who has built anything knows, projects, even simple ones require an ARC made up of Authority, Responsibility and Consistency.  In many cases another factor is required Help.  This provides an ARCH that gives strength and structure to the project increasing the likelihood of success and a generally better outcome. 

In the case of the BER we had Accountability and Responsibility although even these factors were pushed around and many people who should have had both had only one or in some cases should have had neither.  But the real problem was that because of the Gillard way of doing things there was no consistency and two more factors were added to the equation.   Confusion and Politics.  This of course resulted in CRAP.  Now we all know what happens to CRAP in the system.  It is anyway, by definition, a  product of the input of resources that are digested by the system with some benefits arising in the process but of course the main product of an inefficient system is CRAP and waste.  Which is of course what the Gillard project produced. 

It is not enough in my opinion to say that despite all the CRAP and waste produced as a result of the BER it was justifiable because it provided a stimulus to the economy.  Actually the reverse is true.  A project that produces CRAP and waste actually harms the environment around it.  Not only does money get into the wrong hands in the wrong way benefiting the few at the cost of the many but also because CRAP is produced it needs to be cleaned up and this adds additional hidden costs that again must be paid for by the many.  An example of the clean up required is of course the ‘independent report’ which is of course debatably independent as the authors are political appointees and hardly likely to bite the hand that feeds them. 

So how was the report into the BER produced and validated.  Did the authors sit down with a pen and paper and make rough calculations based on the average commercial cost per square meter of the BER versus the average cost of a commercial development?  Did they analyze and inspect the works and were they themselves even capable and qualified to assess the work that was done? 

According to the report ‘To date, the Taskforce has received complaints in respect of 254 schools;’.  OK but does the review panel expect people who might be blamed to report problems?  Many of the people involved in implementing the BER were school administrators who were given CRAP and if they actually complained about the CRAP that they were given would probably be flushed down the toilet with it and lose their jobs because people higher up in the hierarchy simply do not like CRAP being thrown back at them. 

But let’s get back to the report.  Of 10,551 projects the task force visited ‘over 110’, which according to my calculation is about 1%.  Hardly a representative sample. 

The bias in the language and the political persuasion of the authors is clearly evident in the language of the report. On page 8 the report says: ‘The preliminary data available to the Taskforce suggests that some Government systems are delivering P21 projects at costs broadly comparable to non-government schools including those that self manage projects. Centralised delivery models do not necessarily deliver poorer project outcomes.’  Now tell me, where did the implied idea that non-government schools were more efficient or better run than government schools come from?  The people producing this report obviously have that idea but what is it founded on anything other than bias and prejudice? 

On page nine of the report we get a more honest glimpse of the truth about the report where the authors report ‘The Taskforce does not have sufficient pre-BER cost data at this interim stage to conclude, but from what limited data and insights we do have, we think the overall BER versus pre-BER cost differential, for each education authority, is in the range from 0% to plus 12%.’  So they don’t have enough data, which is not surprising since they probably did flying visits to ‘over 110’ schools at great expense to the taxpayer, travelling first class, talked briefly to stake holders who would have great difficulty in really being honest about what had happened because if they admitted to the CRAP and waste it would be thrown back down at them by angry superiors anxious to wash their hands of the problem!   So they ‘think’, or guess or estimate or just made up a number which happens to be somewhere between one and twelve as being roughly the amount that might have what?  I’ll tell you what.  This report is absolute rubbish.  Politically biased, inaccurate and without merit. 

In fact the report is just the paper that Gillard needs to clean up the CRAP and waste she has produced at enormous expense to the taxpayer!

Even the recommendations are mostly meaningless drivel.  The first and most important of them appears to be (see page 9) ‘In the interest of transparency and public accountability, the Taskforce recommends that each education authority publish school specific project cost data related to BER P21 in a nationally common structure with consistent definitions.’ Well please explain how this will help!  Firstly anyone who has built anything will tell you that no such criteria exist and that to compare building projects in such a way the criteria would have to be so gross and loose as to be meaningless.  Secondly this is obviously just another cost that will result in no additional benefit and is simply politically oriented appeasement of the numerical kind, or in other words an attempt to apply metrics to something that requires qualitative as well as quantitative analysis for political gain. 

But not satisfied with producing a meaningless politically biased report with mainly useless recommendations the authors go on to try and make more ‘jobs for the boys’ and in recommendation five they say ‘The Taskforce recommends that where external managing organisations are found to have delivered sub-standard outcomes, education authorities should consider the resolution of outstanding complaints via a mediated process. This could be assisted by the Taskforce.’  Oh whoopee!  So now the people who flew around the country wasting taxpayers’ money to produce a meaningless political whitewash of a report are offering to go a talk to people on an ongoing basis to help clean up the mess!  What a lovely job, easy, good money and great fun I am sure. 

I hope that this analysis on the rubbish produced by the BERIT goes some way to demonstrating that we are all being treated like mushrooms.  Being fed CRAP and kept in the dark about the truth. 

Now tell me.  What went wrong?

 Read the rubbish for yourself here: http://www.deewr.gov.au/Department/Documents/BERIT_Interim_Report_06082010.pdf