Devising of a School Buildings Investment Fund
The School Buildings Investment Fund represents a whole new way in housing schools. It is much smarter and so much more professional.
The search for better school accommodation
In order to speed up and improve the realisation of new school accommodation, Rebel researched the possibilities of an investment fund for the construction of school buildings. What is the added value of such a fund and how should it look like? Nowadays, schools are rarely happy with the quality of their buildings. Realisation takes a lot of time and small authorities and municipalities go through the process only once in their lifetime. However, the average age of existing school buildings is very high and there is great need for new buildings.
Rebel used PPC in funding research
In our research, we used an existing instrument, a Public Private Comparator (PPC), in a new environment, i.e. investment funds. We compared the current situation with different variants of such a fund, also taking into account ‘soft’ interests, such as the fact that schools don’t want to lose control over everything. Therefore, we looked at the opportunities offered and the potential added value.
Now, stakeholders can get on with it
On the basis of the results of this research, all stakeholders are now able to set up such a fund. The research was only a first step. Now, both parties can build on this basis. The public authorities, who initiated the demand, had little knowledge in this matter and variable interests. An investment fund is a market player, and market players think differently. We are good at linking up public and private interest, but also at translating their respective ‘languages’. By implementing a comparator and using our experience and knowledge of how a fund should look like, we were able to provide valuable help.
Old system can be abandoned
The mission required applying a combination of fund-related knowledge and PPC-knowledge in a different sector. When this turns out to be successful, it is very satisfactory. The search for a more professional school accommodation system has been on-going for years. However, this search for solutions remained restricted to the adaptation of little bits and pieces of the existing system. Now, this can be done in a whole different way, much smarter and much more professional.
Foto's
