Landlords owning schools

When you get past the terrible headline of “Landlords owning schools“, the concept of whether new schools need to own their land and buildings, or might be better off leasing them is something one can at least seriously debate.

Many public sector institutions lease instead of own buildings.  No better example than Parliament itself which for many years did not own Bowen House.  It still may not, in fact.  Likewise most Government Departments do not own their own buildings.

One can argue that schools need to stay where they are, and not move about like Departments do.  Well firstly Parliament itself is sort of wedded to the one spot.  And most Govt Departments do stay in one place.

What we should be having is a debate on the pros and cons of ownership vs rental for new infrastructure.  Having private sector involvement will beyond doubt allow a quicker build in most cases.  But National has done itself somewhat of a disservice by having policy come out through media interviews rather than through well researched policy discussion documents which will frame potentially contentious issues by identifying what benefits might occur from the policy, what the drawbacks might be – and making it clear feedback is sought on whether the benefits outweight the drawbacks.