Page 4312 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 7 December 1993
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MR CORNWELL (3.57): Madam Speaker, I rise as a member of the committee to support the recommendations of report No. 4 of the Standing Committee on Social Policy. I think it is fair to say that this has been a very difficult reference because there is no simple answer. I was reminded of an inquiry into this very matter that was conducted while I was a member of an earlier Assembly. I have to say in fairness to the Social Policy Committee of this Assembly that we got much further than that previous committee did, but sometimes times change.
I do not believe that this report offers a solution to the difficulties. However, I do believe that it offers suggestions which could well be taken up; suggestions not only to make better use of these quite expensive community facilities, namely, our schools, but also suggestions to overcome a shortfall of some $918,000, almost $1m, that was incurred by the Department of Education in the community use of facilities. This was the shortfall in what they estimated was the cost of using the facilities as opposed to the amount of money that was paid in rent for their use.
As the chairman of the committee has said, it has been recommended that we address this question by allocating the casual use of schools and the long-term leasing of schools to two different sections; namely, that the schools handle casual use and that the longer-term leasing be handled by the Department of Education. I strongly support this. The evidence is there, very clearly, that centralising the casual use of the facilities leads to all sorts of problems, and, as in any business, if you do not provide the service you are going to lose custom. That became very apparent from the evidence that we took, both in writing and orally from people coming before the committee. Many people, particularly in the sporting area, simply walked away from the schools because they were sick and tired of being mucked around.
Transferring the responsibility for the casual bookings to the schools themselves introduces a form of school based management. We on this side of the house have no problem with that concept. In fact we applaud it. I believe that doing this will have a dual benefit. Firstly, the schools themselves will be able to address the cost implication concerns that numbers of them did raise. Secondly, it will enable the users to make a decision as to whether or not they wish to make use of the facilities provided. There is no obligation on any organisation to make use of these facilities at our schools. However, by allowing the casual users to deal directly with a particular school, at least we might be able to get into some bargaining arrangements. It may be possible to work out a reasonable rate. Whilst it might not be as much as the school would prefer, it might be a bit higher than the user is prepared to pay. What I am saying is that these are matters that can be sorted out by the market, and I think that that is a sensible approach for us to adopt.
Hopefully, this will lead also to maximising the usage of the schools, which I believe has hitherto not been the case. Hopefully, we will also correct what I believe to be some quite arbitrary charges that have been made. Some of those charges have been in the low field. I think I speak on behalf of other committee members when I say that we were rather surprised at the small amount of money that was charged to certain organisations when it was fairly obvious that they were quite capable of paying additional amounts of money for use of these facilities.
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