Public school advocates have been waiting for some time to get a look at the British Columbia Auditor General's report: Planning for School Seismic Safety (PDF, attached). [Update: link corrected]

Much of the report's careful bureaucratese will put you to sleep. I find it falls short of evaluating the Ministry of Education (MEd) in one key area: timeliness. The abysmal pace of reconstruction project approvals since 2004 suggests that MEd has intentionally delayed project approvals.

One snippet from the report I'd like to highlight here:

The program proposal approved by the Minister of Education in 2004 included four delivery options:

• ministry project delivery — the ministry funds within the „„current project delivery framework;
• central agency — central agency established to implement the „„program and manage the projects;
• long-term school board — the ministry develops a long‑term „„implementation plan and performance contracts with individual school boards to implement the program; and
• long-term public/private — government develops a long‑term „„implementation plan providing opportunities for the private sector to deliver the program.

Ministry management recommended that the fourth option, a public‑private partnership, be chosen to deliver the program, but did not include an evaluation of each of the options.

Since 2004, the ministry has explored different ways of managing the Seismic Mitigation Program and of providing support for boards of education. Among the options tried has been the use of a public‑private partnership for delivering projects across school districts as originally planned and, when that did not prove viable, contracting with other government agencies for project oversight services.

However, after more than three years, the ministry has still not identified a delivery model that meets the needs of all stakeholders. The ministry is exploring a model designed to provide additional oversight while providing funding and resources to boards of education to help them build capacity to effectively manage their seismic projects.

Bottom line: ideology - the Premier's Partnerships BC program - has distracted and delayed critical seismic safety upgrades and school reconstruction project approvals. While the approach may make sense for some projects, it has not proven to be so for school upgrade and reconstruction programs.

We should not allow experiments with different business models to delay what are life-safety issues in hundreds of B.C. schools. Children, staff, parents and other facility users in these schools are at risk and the work required is not optional. Hundreds need to be upgraded or rebuilt, and there is a fixed cost to that reality which won't much change no matter what business model is employed. Surely the Minister responsible can see now that applying human resources to the problem, and increasing annual funding to the program, is the only way forward.

Lets get on with it.