Finance and Education Minister Rolston Anglin accused the previous government of being “grandiose” with the design of the new Cayman Brac high school and said he would never have approved it if the decision had been up to him.
Replying to a question from Red Bay MP Roy Tatum about the value for money of the new $59 million school which is currently under construction, Anglin said one of the cost drivers of the original plan was the inclusion of a large gymnasium, approved by the previous administration, which, he said, “placed emphasis on sports tourism and multi-purpose community use”.
With the change in administration, Anglin said that “there has been a shift in focus towards fiscal responsibility and cost control”, which led to ditching the plans for the new gym, saving $6 million on the total cost.
‘Does not represent good value for money’
He told assembled MPs that he was “confident that the new school will meet and exceed the needs of the Cayman Brac community,” but added: “From a value-for-money perspective, however, the assessment of the new Cayman Brac high school project indicates that based on cost metrics – for example, cost per student, cost per square foot – it does not represent good value for money when compared to comparable facilities constructed within the private sector.”
He continued: “While modern infrastructure supports improved learning experiences, new buildings alone do not directly raise educational standards. When assessing value for money, one must compare what has been spent to achieve a particular outcome versus what could have been spent to achieve the same outcome in the context of a school [when] the desired outcome is to provide a safe, modern learning environment.”
The cost of the new school on Cayman Brac has been the focus of intense scrutiny since it was first suggested. The project was initially estimated to cost $25 million according to a strategic outline case in 2023. By the time it was approved and budgeted in late 2023 by the United People’s Movement administration it had snowballed into a $50 million project.
Four MPs – André Ebanks, Katherine Ebanks-Wilks, Sabrina Turner and Heather Bodden – later resigned from government at the end of 2024, citing a number of differences with their Cabinet colleagues, including concern over the “escalating costs” of the Brac school.
Too late for savings
Anglin said that “substantial sums” could have been saved if it had been designed differently, but that it had been too late to make those savings when the current government had been voted in, because major components such as foundations, windows and the roofing system had already been ordered, paid for or completed by 30 April, the date of the general election.
There was then a heated exchange between Anglin and former deputy premier Kenneth Bryan over the original designs for the school.
Bryan challenged Anglin’s statement that it did not represent good value for money, asking whether that was the opinion of “technocrats” who had previously advised Cayman Brac East MP and former premier Juliana O’Connor-Connolly, who was not present in the chamber.
He asked: “Was it the same technocrats that advised this answer to this honorable Parliament that advised the former minister, who’s not here to defend herself today, as to the change in value-for-money approach?”
He continued, “Has the previous report that was presented in the Cabinet paper [on] value for money for the approval of Cabinet, changed?”
In response, Anglin replied nothing had changed and added, “Let me assure the deputy leader of opposition that if Rolston Malachi Anglin was Minister of Education, that paper would not have made its way to the Cabinet.”
Need for a new school
Anglin said that while there was clearly a need for a new school, especially following asbestos removal works over the summer, the issue was the design and cost of the new school.
“I can assure the member that if I was the minister then, knowing what I experienced with the Clifton Hunter High School, substantial design changes would have been made and we would have delivered a modern school that would have served the need,” he said.
He added: “As a steward of the public purse, I would not have approved that business statement [and] that design.”
Bryan responded by asking who approved the Cabinet paper for the new school design, pointing to members of the current government who were also part of the previous administration, adding that “my honorable former premier is not here to defend herself today against the licks for advice that they got”.
In turn, Anglin said, “Ministers are not mindless beings who give policy direction then get technical advice and just take it, at least you should not.”
By way of an example, he said, “If we say we want gold-plated cups to be in the canteen, then the technical team is going to go out and price gold-plated cups, put it in the business case and cost it out and then the Ministry and the Cabinet have to decide whether that’s what they want.
“Everyone in this country has suffered through decades of misspending in education, save for the $13 million project that I delivered across five primary schools between 2005 and 2013.”
He said that other school designs have gone “a little too grandiose” adding: “Let us look at [Cayman] Prep. Let us look at [St Ignatius] Catholic. Let us look at how they design school buildings. It is about ensuring that you are not designing for grandeur. You’re designing for safety … to ensure that teaching and learning is optimal. That is going to be my approach.”
Related Videos
