The head of the taskforce investigating the Federal Government's Building the Education Revolution (BER) program is praising the way that state governments have spent the funds.

The Opposition says the scheme is fraught with waste, but the man overseeing an investigation into the $16 billion program told a Senate committee hearing in Canberra that some states have delivered excellent results.

The Federal Government hired businessman Brad Orgill to examine the project in April, following reports of cost blowouts, rorts, and waste.

Mr Orgill says his next update on the program is due later this month or in early December and will show that South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia have delivered significant benefits to schools along with a stimulus to the general economy.

"We are very impressed with how they have delivered the program across those three states," he said.

"We think they have delivered some excellent outcomes."

Mr Orgill says some state governments have achieved better value for money results than some private school systems.

He says many principals have welcomed the new school halls and classrooms.

"We concluded that the program did deliver much needed infrastructure," he said.

"We found that many of the projects, the majority of the projects, were delivering very, very good results.

"We were amazed and my colleagues were amazed at many schools where infrastructure had not been newly installed for 20 or 30 years."

Mr Orgill says the program's poor performance in New South Wales has unfairly tarnished it everywhere else.

"Outside of New South Wales, the program looks to have been implemented very well with significant benefits to schools and to stimulus at very modest cost premiums, in some cases no cost-premium to pre-BER costs," he said.

During a Senate hearing this morning, Liberal Senator Brett Mason asked Mr Orgill whether Catholic and independent schools in each state and territory generally achieved better value for money than state schools.

"I think that would be premature," Mr Orgill replied.

"I think it would be very interesting for people to see the WA, South Australia, Tasmania experiences in our November report.

"Their ability to deliver a different approach, their ability to align an architect working with the school in the same way as happened in Catholic or independent schools, was very interesting to us."

The BER project was the largest plank of the Government's $42 billion stimulus program, launched at the height of the global financial crisis.

Mr Orgill says by the time his next update is delivered, his taskforce will have visited nearly 250 schools around the nation and spoken with 90 interested parties namely contractors and builders.

He says it is important to remember that the program's first aim was to help stimulate the economy.

"I remember our first visit to Bovis Lend Lease - they said as the program was announced and we could see this coming down, we changed our mindset in terms of retrenching people and hiring people and re-engaging people for the work," he said.

"The expectation was more important than the money. Once you know that a program is coming, the construction, the project management, the project manager will stop sacking people which was happening pre-BER."

Towards the end of the inquiry tempers frayed, with Senator Mason demanding to know if Mr Orgill believed taxpayers had received value for money.

Labor Senator Gavin Marshall intervened, asking if Senator Mason was trying to make political points.

"No, it is Commonwealth money," Senator Mason replied.

"The Commonwealth is entitled to know whether it has achieved value for money out of taxpayers' money. That is fair."

Mr Orgill said: "There is no evidence to say that value for money has not been achieved" but "we would say that we want to see the full evidence before reaching such a conclusion."