School-based organisations such as TRAILS Incorporated at Holroyd School in Merrylands and Carenne Support Limited at Carenne School in Bathurst are being given special treatment under the Special Needs Transport Service administered by the Department of Education and Training.
Under the service, students with special needs are transported to and from school at the department's expense. According to their 2008 annual report, the department provided 10,772 students with transport utilising 588 contractors. Contracts are meant to be awarded on a tender basis, but a Sydney-based contractor says that many contractors weren't informed about upcoming contracts and they were instead awarded to TRAILS.
"I used to have a few runs into Holroyd but it soom became obvious that they wanted to oust me for the school's own buses, they are never tendered and now I only have my runs elsewhere" said the contractor who wishes to remain anonymous for fear of retribution.
School-based organisations have a strategic advantage over ordinary contractors as they have access to the department's Special Transport Management System which gives them an overview of transport runs into a particular school. Gail Vasic who manages the SNTS told us that schools have had access since 2007 so as to "improve processes at the school level". This may allow principals (who often serve on the board of directors of these school-based organisations) to make suggestions on how to improve the "efficiency" of transport services into and out of their own school. Often these suggestions include consolidating runs into a larger bus purchased specifically for this purpose by the school-based organisation.
This issue raises an important issue - if tenders aren't being put out how can the best contractor at the best price be chosen? Why are these school-based organisations given precedence? and why has this been allowed to continue?
2 comments:
Carenne Support ltd stole the busses of Carenne Public School they should be charged with fraud.
Carenne Support ltd stole the busses of Carenne Public School they should be charged with fraud.
Post a Comment