Select a region
There have been several large jumps in costs linked with the ongoing hospital modernisation project, with the latest estimates - climbing to £154million - coming courtesy of Policy & Resources.
The Committee was questioned by Scrutiny yesterday as part of a wider fact finding mission on the Government Work Plan post tax debate. The President of the Scrutiny Management Committee (SMC), Deputy Yvonne Burford, took the opportunity to seek the latest projected costs for the staged project.
The hospital modernisation project was discussed in detail during a prior meeting of Scrutiny, when the Committee sat down with Health and Social Care. It was announced that HSC would be combining the final two phases of the three phase project into one final phase. At the time, it was estimated that this final phase would exceed £100million.
Phase one has already started and is ongoing. Phase two will need further States approval.
“The total original projected cost for all three phases was between £72million and £92million,” said Deputy Burford yesterday, citing the original policy letter. “What is the projected cost now for all three phases?”
The President of P&R, Deputy Peter Ferbrache, confirmed that the latest estimates he’d seen had gone “north of £134million”.
“The figures are what the the figures will be, and the States will have to consider these,” he said, referring to an upcoming P&R Policy Letter on capital projects. He said costs will be lined up next to individual capital projects and States’ members will have to consider how to allocate funding.
Deputy Burford was astounded that the cost of the project had risen so much and drilled down into what the final cost could possibly be. And while it is HSC’s project, she argued that since P&R hold the “purse strings” there were “questions to be asked” of them.
Treasury Lead, Deputy Mark Helyar, agreed that “it seems fantastical that this has more than doubled in price” but suggested it is out of their hands and comes courtesy of rising inflation and skyrocketing building costs. He said the figure he had in his head for the combined phase 2 and 3 was £120million.
Deputy Burford posited that including the original phase this would equate to a project cost of around £154million. “Probably,” replied Deputy Helyar.
Next phase of hospital project will exceed £100m
Talks ongoing about future scale of PEH project
Comments
Comments on this story express the views of the commentator only, not Bailiwick Publishing. We are unable to guarantee the accuracy of any of those comments.