TO CARRY OWN RISK.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19488, 18 November 1926, Page 14

TO CARRY OWN RISK.

SECONDARY SCHOOL FIRES. DECISION OF DEPARTMENT, EXISTING POLICIES TO LAPSE, Fire risk on secondary schools will in future be carried by the Education Department. The Auckland Education Board was yesterday advised of this decision, the department instructing the board to allow the existing policies to lapse. Consideration was deferred nntil the next meeting of the board. Notification of the department's new policy was also received at the meeting of the Auckland Grammar School Board yesterday. " I sometimes wonder what good the board is," said Dr. E. Roberton, when the letter was received. Dr. Roberton said the board did not seem to have any power at all as it was constantly being overridden from Wellington. "Oh, well," said a member hopefully, "we serve a purpose as a local advisory committee." In the past it had been the custom of the Grammar School Board to insure its schools and hostels with local companies, stated the chairman, Professor A. P. W. Thomas, in an interview subsequently. The new system, as he understood it, was that the department wonld carry its own risk. There would be no policy covering a particular building, nor would any amount of cover be specified. In the case of loss by fire the department would fall back on the Consolidated Pund. If a school were destroyed by fire, the question of re-erecting it would arise. The Government, which would have to find the money, could then insist on the adoption of its own plan. It might elect to replace the old building with a cheaper one or otherwise, according to the financial circumstances of the moment. Under the old system, the Grammar School Board insured its schools and hostels and, in the case of fire, would either collect the amount of the policy against re-building or have the destroyed building replaced.