Projects

Project: Building the Education Revolution Project

Client: Department of Treasury and Finance (Building Management & Works)

Procurement: Lump Sum based upon standard template designs for specific buildings and provisional quantities for external works and services 

Stage: Award of construction contracts

In late 2008 the Commonwealth Government established a $14.7b program for Building the Education Revolution (BER) as part of an economic stimulus package. The program required construction of primary school buildings and upgrading existing educational facilities. The Commonwealth Government set the timelines for the commitment of funds and the delivery of facilities by the State’s. The Department of Education and Training (DET) engaged Building Management & Works (BMW) to manage the delivery of the $1.2B program in WA.
Under the Commonwealth guidelines, each school was allocated a notional level of funding for the various aspects of the program in accordance with the number of full time students enrolled at each school.

The BER program in WA included three components: maintenance activities to 780 schools ($98M), construction of new buildings at 677 schools ($1.07B) and development of science and language centre’s in secondary schools.  These schools are spread throughout the 14 educational districts in WA, including Cocos and Christmas Islands.

Appian Group was engaged by BMW to provide advice and assistance in the development of a strategy to deliver the scope of "Building the Education Revolution" in accordance with the Commonwealth Government’s requirements. In particular, Appian was required to develop the Implementation and Procurement Strategy for the delivery of the project and develop documentation for the contracting arrangements with project managers, consultants and contractors.

The project delivery strategy was required to accommodate the competing interests of school communities with state wide educational outcomes. In addition, the complexities of each school had to be considered for such issues as for remote communities, heritage listed buildings, acid sulphate soils, aboriginal heritage, schools with limited space and integration with existing school facilities.

Given the stimulus nature of the project and the funding guidelines, the project had to develop innovative processes and procedures to mitigate the impact of numerous impediments to the accelerated delivery requirements of the program, in particular processes for completion of stakeholder discussions, site investigations, planning approvals, design and documentation development, strategies for procurement of resources and contractors.

The project was initiated by BMW on 20 February 2009.  Contracts for project managers and architectural consultants were awarded in March 2009 and the first of maintenance contracts awarded in early June 2009. The first of the construction contracts was awarded in late June 2009. Procurement of construction services was substantially completed in August 2009.  The project will be completed by June 30, 2011.