Jul 28, 2025
Bringing structure, strategy and long-term thinking to education delivery, Pomeroy Pacific is proud to support the VSBA’s mission to create inclusive, future-ready schools across Victoria.
Victoria’s educational infrastructure is undergoing one of its most significant transformations in decades, driven by the Victorian School Building Authority (VSBA). With hundreds of new schools, modernisations, and upgrade projects underway or in planning, the State Government’s commitment to building inclusive, safe, and future-ready learning environments is clear.
This is not just a capital works program, but a coordinated effort to ensure that school infrastructure supports both educational aspirations and community needs. Delivering this vision across a geographically and demographically diverse state, often within live school environments and under tight timeframes, requires more than construction capability. It calls for a strategic and disciplined approach to both project and program management, grounded in technical depth, sector-specific insight, and strong stakeholder alignment. From inner-city campuses to remote regional schools, each site presents unique challenges that must be navigated with precision and empathy.
At Pomeroy Pacific, we see the delivery of school infrastructure not simply as the management of individual projects, but as a statewide program of long-term investment. This approach ensures value for money, equity in access, and measurable educational outcomes which are all underpinned by robust planning, governance, and communication.
The scope of the VSBA’s capital works program extends across the entire state, from densely populated urban campuses to remote regional schools. This is not a one-size-fits-all initiative. Each location presents a unique mix of challenges, including constrained access, heritage considerations, culturally diverse communities, and complex stakeholder relationships.
The program encompasses a broad range of infrastructure investments, including:
Managing a portfolio of this scale, often with overlapping timelines and interdependent risks, requires more than effective project delivery. It relies on experienced program governance and flexible delivery models that can respond to both site-specific conditions and system-wide priorities.
Delivering a program of this complexity and scale requires more than strong project management alone. It demands a layered approach that distinguishes, and leverages, the complementary strengths of both project management (PM) and program management (PgM).
When applied together, project and program management form an integrated delivery system. This approach connects individual project outcomes to wider government and community goals, ensuring that each school contributes to the broader vision for educational infrastructure across Victoria.
Effective education infrastructure delivery is not just about completing projects. It’s about building a repeatable, scalable system that delivers consistent quality, community benefit, and long-term value across hundreds of diverse sites.
At Pomeroy, we apply structured project and program management approaches that create this system. These methods allow us to address both the complexity of individual schools and the demands of a state-led, outcomes-focused delivery model.
Here are five ways our approach adds strategic value to the VSBA capital works program:
1. Scalable and Repeatable Delivery Frameworks: We develop and deploy repeatable processes that allow projects to be delivered efficiently across multiple sites. This includes standardised scopes, documentation templates, consultant engagement protocols, and design typologies tailored to VSBA standards.
2. Safe Delivery in Live Environments: Many upgrades occur while schools remain operational. PMs play a critical role in sequencing construction activities, ensuring safe separation of work zones, and engaging with principals to minimise disruption.
3. Stakeholder Alignment and Community Confidence: With every school representing its own ecosystem—comprising students, staff, parents, local councils, and Indigenous communities—project managers act as the link between technical delivery and social outcomes, building trust and maintaining transparency.
4. Procurement and Consultant Management: Program managers ensure consistency and value for money by bundling packages, streamlining procurement, and managing panels of architects, engineers, and contractors. This improves speed to market while ensuring compliance with Victorian Government purchasing guidelines.
5. Risk, Cost and Time Governance: Sophisticated risk registers, financial tracking tools, and master program schedules ensure visibility at both project and program levels. This enables proactive decision-making, early intervention, and continuous improvement.
The VSBA capital works program isn’t just about delivering buildings. It represents long-term investment in people, places, and equitable access to quality education. Effective project and program management are central to this mission. These disciplines ensure that public investment results in infrastructure that is safe, inclusive, and enduring, from state-of-the-art learning environments to universally accessible facilities.
As Victoria’s school infrastructure pipeline continues to expand, particularly in growth areas and communities experiencing socio-educational disadvantage, delivery models must also evolve. The future lies not in transactional construction contracts but in integrated, outcomes-focused program delivery built on strategy, consistency, and community alignment.
At Pomeroy, we bring decades of experience delivering complex infrastructure across the education sector. Our approach to school delivery combines commercial discipline with deep public sector understanding, ensuring that every project meets the needs of its community while supporting the strategic objectives of the VSBA and the Department of Education.
By bridging the space between policy and implementation, and between community needs and construction outcomes, project and program management provide the foundation for sustainable and scalable educational infrastructure that will serve future generations.