CONTRACT SYSTEM.

Auckland Star, Volume LII, Issue 24, 28 January 1921, Page 8

CONTRACT SYSTEM.

FAILURES WITH SCHOOLS. ALLEGED COLLUSION AMONG BUILDERS. (By Telegraph.—Special lo "Star."") WELLINGTON, this day. That the contract system as formerly understood has disappeared is the conclusion of the Minister of Education, when summarising for your correspondent the results of the conference with education boards regarding future building plans. Tendering to be fair must be on competitive **asis, rei-iaj-ked Air. Parr, but under present conditions there is no competition. We - have evidence that in some districts builders lis the price mutually, and tendering is a formality. In other places the work is pooled and allocated by ballot. Fout of the nine education boards build schools on their own account by day labour. They produced figures and facts to prove that this system is more economical, and secures a more faithful job than by the old contract system, which they have thrown overboard as inefficient." "Tho advice of Mr. Campbell, Government architect, and Mr. Troup, Railway Department's architect, was most valuable. These gentlemen admitted that the old contractor of a few years back has gone out of business. Those boards which adhere to contracts had to admit that their procedure required revision and reconsideration.

The Auckland Board which controls one quarter of the whole educational area of New Zealand, is an adherent of the contract system, but its officers had to admit that when grants are made repeated attempts to secure tenders sometimes fail. They have undertaken to reconsider their methods with a view to dealing with such cases by day labour. THE FUTURE SYSTEM. The Minister indicated that schoolbuilding methods of the future will involve a mixed system of separate tendering for lahour and materials, or for carrying on the work by day labour.

""An important point made by a North Island Board which does it own work," remarked the Minister, "was' that it buys 'building- materials at an average rate of 20 per cent cheaper than the builder. It buys heart of kauri for .30/10 per hundred, for which a builder pays 37/6, rimu for 43/10, the builder paying' 55/6, and paints 23/6 the gallon the local builder having to pay 30/. The architects have conferred regarding what is known as the American system of tendering, under which a builder tenders at a certain price and discloses what profit is added If the job is done at the contract rate he gets his profit, if the expenditure is higher there is a pro rata deduction, while if the work is done for les 3 than the contract he secures his percentage of the saving, the Hawke's Bay Education Board introduced a system of this sort without knowing it was generally in use in ta-Tr; ey f ° Und the runt LZ. *" . They have a cont --*-rt running at present.,