It has been obvious for some years that things had gone badly wrong at the Edinburgh Tram Project: any project that doubles in price and is delivered 12 years late despite having been significantly cut back in scope has obviously gone off the rails.
Major failings in the procurement and project management processes have been highlighted by Lord Hardie’s report (see News) as responsible for what must be one of the biggest infrastructure procurement screw ups in Scottish history. A “litany of failures” was identified in the report, all of them avoidable if proper procurement processes had been in place.
The inquiry itself took nine years and £13 million to produce a report of 959 pages, which itself doesn’t suggest any great organisational skills. Lord Hardie’s comments are damning of the role played by the Scottish Government, Edinburgh city council and it’s arms length project delivery body Transport Initiatives Scotland (TIE). His findings were so troubling that he has called for legislation to introduce criminal sanctions for individuals and companies that lie to councillors.
Obviously he was incensed by what the inquiry discovered; undeniably he found much to be incensed about. The Scottish government decision to withdraw the co-operation of Transport Scotland officials from Edinburgh City Council’s arms length company TIE whose technical experience would have been invaluable in advising TIE in the initial contract negotiations is hard to justify.
Blame for this was laid at the feet of former Scottish Government deputy first minister John Swinney, who is given heavy criticism for interfering, “pulling strings” behind the scenes as the government tried to sort the project’s problems. He was responsible for scaling back Transport Scotland’s support, and later realising his mistake became involved in sorting out problems that quickly arose. This intervention would not have been necessary had Scottish ministers allowed officials to undertake their normal role in major transport projects, Hardie says.
Edinburgh council officials have been accused of giving councillors “misleading reports” on the project’s costs and overstepped their remit, Hardie says. Neither TIE or the council had the necessary expertise to procure and manage a project like this. Lacking the relevant in house technical and procurement skills itself the council unsurprisingly failed to scrutinise TIE “with sufficient care” and failed to protect the allocated budget.
Many basic procurement rules were broken. For example, prior to the signing of the infrastructure contract, TIE had failed to complete design to the extent intended, did not obtain all necessary consents and approvals and did not complete the diversion of utilities as it should have.
As a result the infrastructure contract and the novation of the design contract did not transfer risk to the contractor to the extent intended in the procurement strategy.
There was a lack of cooperation from those under investigation by the inquiry – Lord Hardie complains of difficulties in obtaining documents “despite the use of statutory powers”. Lord Hardie concluded that he held TIE, Edinburgh council and Scottish ministers principally responsible for the failure to deliver the project on time, within budget and to the original vision.
Lessons must obviously be learned from this debacle; but it seems that procurement lessons already learned long ago were simply ignored.
Nick Barrett
Editor