Taxpayers to dig for £20M for Liverpool Dock

[Mercenary]

1 hour ago, Roger Mexico said:

I'm just going to repeat a comment I made about a year ago:

asitis said: Have our MHK's seen a full cost breakdown of where the money has gone before they voted to continue this farce ?

Of course not.  Tynwald finally revolted back in December when the demand to increase the budget to £71 million from £38 million and Watterson got the motion modified to also demand:

the Department of Infrastructure to publish by the last day of January 2022 a report to Tynwald which should include (i) a detailed cost breakdown of the budget as envisaged in February 2019, July 2019, July 2021 and December 2021; (ii) a detailed explanation of each area in which the budgeted cost has increased along with all relevant reports

Now in any sort of remotely competently managed project all this information should be available in any case, so it would just me a matter of putting things together.

But they simply didn't.  Eventually, some time in May, I think, a report was produced:

Isle of Man Ferry Terminal at Liverpool Budget Breakdown:  February 2019, July 2019, July 2021, December 2021

So it took them six months to come up with something that should have been available in a few days

Proving again that the DoI thinks itself above any sort of democratic control and Tynwald seems unable to stop it.

It's worth reading through, both to get some detail and to get the feel of the civil servant attitude - basically just shrugging their shoulders and saying "Shit happens".  The fact that Tynwald just put up with this is also telling - in any normal organisation an underling who failed to come up with this stuff in a few days would be fired (this is stuff that you'd expect to be the subject of regular internal reports).  Given over a month to do so, the DoI simply ignored a Tynwald motion until it suited them four months after that.  And Tynwald - did nothing.

Well realistically the political impetus is on these projects at the wrong time.

 

When all the moaning was about the Prom, the pre-contract Landing Stage should have been the focus.

 

Now Landing Stage is the hot topic, but the horse has long bolted and the interconnectors/energy strategy should be under scrutiny (especially when it's murky who is leading/setting the objectives on this £200m endeavour, be it DEFA/climate change, MUA or CabO). The future energy scenarios workstream that has been consulted on certainly seemed to be driven by the net zero team, with focus on net zero rather than capital cost/delivery risk/energy resilience.

[Two-lane]

46 minutes ago, The Voice of Reason said:

“ put them on a trowel” ? What’s that mean?

I think it means "To be interviewed by a Manx Radio political heavyweight". Or, as Denis Healy once said, "Like being savaged by a dead sheep".

[asitis]

1 hour ago, Two-lane said:

I think it means "To be interviewed by a Manx Radio political heavyweight". Or, as Denis Healy once said, "Like being savaged by a dead sheep".

Good context, having watched the revelations recently concerning investigative journalism !

[Roger Mexico]

2 hours ago, Two-lane said:

I think it means "To be interviewed by a Manx Radio political heavyweight". Or, as Denis Healy once said, "Like being savaged by a dead sheep".

A crack that Healy levelled at Geoffrey Howe, though later, after his sacking, he made a resignation speech so vicious and well-aimed that it led to the eventual fall of Margaret Thatcher.  So 'dead' people can sometimes be deadly - as Sigurd Eysteinsson once discovered.

[woolley]

3 hours ago, The Voice of Reason said:

“ put them on a trowel” ? What’s that mean?

It sounds sinister to me. A bit like given a concrete overcoat and incorporated into some infrastructure.

[Roger Mexico]

Anyway, back on topic, the report to Tynwald from last year I referred to earlier has the following interesting summary of where the DoI says costs have risen:

[woolley]

All could do with further breakdown and analysis, of course.

[code99]

20 hours ago, Two-lane said:

Thomas says that Cannan has set him up to be the fall guy - a scapegoat  - a person who is blamed for the mistakes of others. The mistake is presumably the monumental screw-up that is the Liverpool landing stage.

He then goes on to say what a wonderful project the Liverpool landing stage is, and how we can all enjoy the quiet room for the next 236 years.

Signed

Confused of Ramsey

 

What confused me about this room is that it was designed for the use of transferring hospital patients. I understand that currently most NHS patient transfers are done by plane and the boat option is only used as a backup plan in case there are delays/ cancellations at the Airport. Under today’s circumstances, having a specifically designated facility for these patients within the new Terminal building seems like a sensible precaution. However, I hope that the creation of the new "quiet room" does not signal that they are permanently planning to switch patient transfers from air-based to sea-based. Surely, when offered the choice of a 20-minute flight or a potentially rocky 3-hour journey by sea (albeit on a salubrious brand new boat), most patients, especially those who are frail, would prefer to fly.

[Guest]

CO2, Biosphere, mumble mumble...

Wait for the announcement of the new 'green' patient transfer service.

[Happier diner]

11 hours ago, woolley said:

All could do with further breakdown and analysis, of course.

That could be tricky as Contractors are not keen to, and are legally permitted to refuse to, share their rates and charges. The NEC Project Manager, The Quantity Surveyor and the DOI project sponsor will be party to this information but to share it would put them at breach of contract.

You have to remember that this is a Cost Reimbursable Contract. The contractor claims his costs (Staff, materials, hire etc) and the Quantity surveyor assesses these and passes this to the Pm who approves the payment.  Once approved the Client is legally obliged to pay them. All this bluster about Tynwald approval is bullshit. It will have to be paid. Unless the client thinks there has been a mistake or a fraud, they pay as recommended by the NEC PM.

If you look at the flow chart below you will see no mention of the Client (or Tynwald)

[P.K.]

15 hours ago, woolley said:

All could do with further breakdown and analysis, of course.

The minutes from the progress meetings would make for interesting reading.

Always assuming they had any of course...

[asitis]

1 hour ago, P.K. said:

The minutes from the progress meetings would make for interesting reading.

Always assuming they had any of course...

Probably mislaid !

[Non-Believer]

3 minutes ago, asitis said:

Probably mislaid !

Or even slept through....

[woolley]

5 hours ago, Happier diner said:

That could be tricky as Contractors are not keen to, and are legally permitted to refuse to, share their rates and charges. The NEC Project Manager, The Quantity Surveyor and the DOI project sponsor will be party to this information but to share it would put them at breach of contract.

Appreciated, but there are an awful lot of compromise points between asking them to share inner sanctum stuff and being presented with one humongous figure called "construction" that has doubled since the previous projection. I think we are entitled to some meat on the bone, even if we can't scrutinise every sinew. We are the ones paying after all.

As for Tynwald approval, I quite agree. The moment this was signed up to we were in for whatever was decided it would cost. That's where the error was perpetrated. Now we just have to suck it up. Doesn't mean that there shouldn't be consequences, but obviously there won't be. Well, not the right consequences anyway.

[woolley]

Please tell me we aren't going to end up with a boat that can't dock and a dock that can't boat. 😃

I'm only joking. I'm not that pessimistic. (But if anyone can do it, it's us.)