The truth is out there

NO NEW 'truth' is likely to emerge when the States debates Fallagate. Auditor General for Wales Jeremy Colman, who headed the independent inquiry, was responding to claims by some deputies that his report has failed to uncover the real story behind a cheaper hospital tender being withdrawn at a cost to the taxpayer of £2.4m.

And nothing new has come out since the findings were released, he said.

'I don't think anything has taken me by surprise,' said Mr Colman.

'We put in the report everything we thought was both important and where we had evidence.

'There were issues, some raised subsequently, that people had mentioned to us, but no evidence was shown to us to support them.'

He added that as auditors they did not speculate.

'We were asked to investigate the circumstances surrounding the spend. We produced a report that we still stand by as a comprehensive analysis of what we found where there was evidence to support it.

'Clearly I could have been writing letters to the newspaper or individuals pretty much every day since the report was published to anybody who criticises, says it's not complete or quotes it selectively.

'I've refrained from doing that. We had an enormous privilege producing the report. It says everything we wanted it to say and now it's up to the States to decide what to do about it.'

The WAO was asked to investigate why R. G. Falla had withdran its cheaper bid to build the clinical block at the PEH after the matter had been discussed by the Policy Council.

There was no pressure to exclude anything from the report, added Mr Colman.

'We can only examine the evidence we find and we looked very thoroughly,' he said.

'We carried out over 50 interviews and read papers going back years. It's always possible that somebody could produce evidence we haven't seen, but since we interviewed all the key players, asked them to produce evidence, it would be surprising if anyone we'd seen had anything we didn't know about previously.'

The report makes 14 recommendations on updating procedures which the Public Accounts Committee is taking to the House next week.

Mr Colman said it was recognised around the world that procurement of major public projects was an area of high risk.

'We found the procedures were out of date and weren't followed anyway. That's very unsatisfactory indeed,' he said.

'It's an area of risk to public money that had not been properly safeguarded by procedures or the way people behaved.'

There needed to be tight controls over communications between those on the inside and outside of a public procurement project, he said.

'We used the word inappropriate to describe some actions where communication had taken place across the boundary in a way that's not sanctioned by proper procedures. That's a bad idea, it exposes the government, the taxpayers, to a risk that's quite easy to avoid.'

There was no suggestion of corrupt or illegal behaviour, he said.

'Our belief is that with proper procedures in place, which isn't difficult, the interests of the people of Guernsey could be safeguarded in the future,' said Mr Colman.

He did not want to comment on the Policy Council's decision to stand down in the wake of the report.