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Infrastructure News is the regular newsletter from the Ministry of Education Education Infrastructure to keep suppliers up to date with new policies, common queries and issues.
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What's new
Reminders
For your information
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School Investment Package announced
The School Investment Package announced earlier in the month by the Government provides most state schools with one-off funding to help them with property projects.
This is an opportunity for schools to accelerate delivery of a project to upgrade and enhance learning environments or discretionary projects, such as landscaping, paving, car parks and capital pool maintenance, which are sometimes deferred while schools prioritise health and safety, and essential infrastructure works.
As the package is focused on acceleration, schools need to select projects that can be initiated soon and delivered in the next 6-24 months (by December 2021).
The funding will be managed using the same process as for Five Year Agreement (5YA) funding. Property staff will support schools to identify projects and delivery options, and the funds for these projects will be allocated once the plans are agreed. The School Investment Package funding line will be added to the 10YPP planner in the property portal.
You can find Frequently Asked Questions below, or you can talk with the school’s property advisor.
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A step closer to improved infrastructure planning
The second pipeline of New Zealand’s planned infrastructure projects has been released by the new Infrastructure Commission - Te Waihanga, with a combined estimated value of $21.1bn.
We are one of 15 government organisations supplying data to the pipeline.
The pipeline is intended to increase coordination between procuring entities as planned works are made visible, and to enable smoothing of the market. Infrastructure Commission Chair, Dr Allan Bollard says data quality and volume is imperative to deliver an increasingly robust picture of New Zealand’s forward works programme.
Read more about the pipeline on the Infrastructure Commission website.
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Results from the second annual Ministry of Education supplier survey
We recently undertook our annual survey of suppliers to understand how attractive we are as a client, how well we communicate with suppliers, what changes our suppliers would like to see and how the balance of risk in our contracts is perceived.
This is the second year we have run the survey and it has been great to see some of the areas we have improved. It was also a good opportunity to understand the areas where we still have some work to do and make sure that the initiatives we have underway reflect these.
Last year’s survey resulted in a large number of initiatives to work towards improving. This gave us some solid foundations to work with.
We’ve summarised what you told us and some of our initiatives below and will keep you up to date as we address the feedback.
What we do well
- The majority of our suppliers feel that we have a strong focus on customer service and that our people work hard to keep communication lines open and give good service to the suppliers.
- Although we may not always hit the mark, it is consistently recognised we’re trying to improve, we want to hear what is and is not working and understand how we can do something about it.
- The fairness of our contracts has been a hot topic lately. We recognise that there are several improvements to make contracts clearer and easier and more balanced which we started last year. To date, the majority 58% think our balance is fair in our contracts. We are currently undertaking a review of our construction contracts and will be updating you in the New Year with progress. As a first step towards balancing risk allocation, we have removed two of our Special Conditions that we agree unfairly allocate risk to the Contractor and we will be reverting to the industry standard NZS standard conditions for ‘Underground and above ground utilities’ and ‘Unforeseen physical conditions’. This change applied to all contracts drafted from 22 October 2019.
- Commentary around debriefs has been very positive and we have made great strides in making sure where possible quality of debriefs are provided. This is reflected in the jump up in our survey.
- Over 70% of respondents agreed there is sufficient time to respond to tenders.
Areas for improvement
- You told us that we need to provide much clearer scopes and communicate our work plan better when going out for tender - over 40% of our suppliers did not feel we are clear on what services we are asking for. Work is underway to address this, which includes looking at different ways of working and more flexibility as well as how we can best leverage our directories to provide contracts without undertaking a full RFP Process
- Whilst it was widely recognised that we ask for feedback and want to improve we do not always act upon this. Work pressures, over-commitment and staff turnover amongst many other factors all feed into this. Last year’s survey resulted in a large number of initiatives to work towards improving.
- This gave us some solid foundations to work with. This year we plan to focus on fewer initiatives with bigger impacts. Please see the next steps for key actions
- Some suppliers feel the risk is being held by them and find getting the right level of insurance a struggle. In particular, the smaller companies have voiced concerns over this.
- There is still very much the perception that we are price-driven and that work is only awarded to the ‘big guys’. Our work and commitment to the Construction Sector Accord will go some way towards this, however, this will take time and effort to change long-held perceptions.
Next steps
- Contract review - The Commercial team are working in collaboration with Legal and Capital Works to better understand the contracts held and how we can address the balance of risk, make less onerous and easier to follow. We have already removed two special conditions as a result of this work which has been well received.
- Professional Services- Capital Works Procurement and Capital Works recently undertook a roadshow to designers and Quantity Surveyors across Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. The intent was to present a proposed new approach to working which would involve a directory set up and a better way of procuring services.
- Trialling new ways of working – A number of projects are underway where we are looking at alternative approaches to the traditional tendering per job approach. Examples of this include the ‘‘packaging’ of jobs in harder to source places to make them more appealing to a supplier as they have some ongoing work and can resource accordingly.
- Performance- Underpinning both Professional Services and new ways of working is performance. We want to be able to understand how all our suppliers are performing which will enable us to make decisions more easily, reducing time spent on evaluations, procurements both within the Ministry and from the supplier lens.
- Pipeline- Being able to proactively provide suppliers with visibility over upcoming work is an area that is important to everyone. The pipeline was developed last year and has continued to be refined with each iteration.
- Scopes- Another significant piece of work currently under implementation is the review of our scopes across professional services. Many of these had not been updated for some time and there was a crossover of roles and responsibilities across suppliers.
- Improving our documentation - We are working on making the information and advice we provide to schools more consistent, easier to follow and written in a way that people can relate to.
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Applications to the Sustainability Contestable Fund are now open
The Sustainability Contestable Fund was launched by Education Minister Chris Hipkins on 6 November 2019. Applications for the first funding round close on the 31 January 2020.
The Fund is intended to support schools to improve their operational efficiency and reduce their environmental impact. The Fund can be used to support projects that achieve one or more of the following outcomes:
- Increased energy resilience, especially for rural and remote schools.
- Replacement of non-renewable energy sources and/or reduction in energy usage.
- Reduction of waste and/or increased recycling.
- Reduction of carbon emissions through the use of new technology, infrastructure or energy sources.
For more information on the Fund and projects that are eligible please refer to the Sustainability Contestable Fund webpage.
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10 Year Property Planner now includes additional funding information
We have updated the 10-year Property Planner (10YPP) in the Property Portal to include additional approved funding information. This will help provide a comprehensive 10YPP for each school.
When preparing a 10YPP starting from the 2020 funding cycle you will be able to see any additional approved funding, which must be allocated to the appropriate project when developing the plan. These projects will be approved as part of the 10YPP.
More information on setting up an additional funding source projects is available on our website.
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Changes to school-led contracts for medium and major works
We recently advised Project Managers about some changes for School-led Medium and Major works contracts.
We received some queries about the changes and would like to clarify them:
- We removed two special conditions related to underground and above ground utilities, as well as unforeseen physical conditions for both contracts
- For Major Works contracts, we have updated the payment terms to 20 working days from the 20th of the month
- For Medium Works contracts we have removed the 7-day time limit and reverted to NZS3910 standard timing of “as soon as practicable and where possible before conditions are disturbed for Clause 4.3.
These contracts are now available on our website on the on the Contracts for construction works and professional services webpage.
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact us at eis.commercial@education.govt.nz.
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Changes to shared working spaces for review panel members
Earlier in the year, the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) notified us that they were no longer going to be supporting a shared workspace between ministries. The shared workspace they supported was aging in terms of its core platform, with the underlying IT services reaching their end-of-life.
The DIA supported shared workspace is being retired on 31 December.
We have been working closely with our site administrators to find a suitable replacement which is simple and easy to use. We’re excited to announce that we’re partnering with Objective Connect to support our new shared workspace.
Our external review panels predominately use the online workspace to manage their files. All panels have been advised of the changes and have confirmed which files and documents they want migrated to the new working space.
Over the next week review panel members with receive an email invitation from Objective Connect with instructions on how to access the shared workspace.
If you have any questions or would like to know more, please contact Kelly Mitchell.
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Construction CoVE – have your say
The Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) is running a series of workshops to hear your views on a Construction Centre of Vocational Excellence (CoVE). CoVEs will play a significant role in driving innovation and excellence in vocational education, by strengthening links with industry and communities. The form and function of the CoVE will be designed so it matches what industry needs.
The first two CoVEs to be in place in 2020 will be a Construction CoVE and a Primary Sector CoVE.
Your engagement on the Accord is key to shaping the role and purpose of the Construction CoVE as well as the broader Reform of Vocational Education (RoVE) programme. Your input and feedback gathered through the Accord have helped inform the challenges the Construction CoVE could address for the sector. The upcoming CoVE workshops are an excellent opportunity to hear more about this work as well as provide further industry input to shape an important part of the vocational education system in New Zealand. In the upcoming workshops, TEC wants to hear your thoughts on:
- the functions the CoVE should undertake
- the scope of coverage for the CoVE
- who should be involved
- how long the CoVE should run for
- location
- what makes a successful CoVE and how to measure this
Read more about CoVEs and find out how to have your say.
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Mates in Construction - Mental health initiative for the sector
Recent news about the high suicide rate among construction workers has put the issue front of mind for many of us. The MATES In Construction programme launched recently to help reduce the number of suicides in the sector. The programme is focused on opening up communication channels and getting workers to talk to each other about their mental health. It will work to change the on-site culture and improve people’s knowledge of what can be done to prevent suicide in the industry.
Find out more about Mates in Construction
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Construction Sector Accord update, November 2019
In this month's update, you can watch the first Accord case study about how Hamilton City Council is living the Accord principles. You can also find out about the Accord Steering Group's endorsement of the Transformation Plan, the launch of the Mates in Construction mental health programme, TEC’s plans for the Construction Centre of Vocational Excellence (CoVE), and risk education workshops.
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Stay up to date
Find out about important updates to property policies, processes and systems on the Information for Suppliers page. To subscribe to this newsletter or for any further information, please email eis.engagement@education.govt.nz
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