The Scrutiny Management Committee has revealed that its requests for more information from the States Property Unit over the acquisition and plans for development of the site off the Bridge have not been met.
In a letter of comment on the Major Projects report, due to be debated by the States next week, Scrutiny said it asked for information on how decisions were made, including a business case development, options appraisal, financial analysis, due diligence and governance arrangements.
But it said it had been unable to secure a complete, coherent and auditable record showing how the decision to buy the site was justified and approved, ‘a serious and material concern’.
It continues to have concerns about the governance arrangements on the development project, especially the distinction between oversight and executive responsibility.
The States paid £4.5m. for Leale’s Yard in July last year, having earlier in the year pulled out of a deal to support developers with a scheme to build about 300 homes on the site. Nothing has changed on the site in the months since.
‘The committee is concerned that these issues do not appear to have been substantively addressed. This raises a broader question as to the effectiveness of governance and challenge mechanisms in practice, particularly where identified weaknesses are not demonstrably resolved before projects continue to progress,’ Scrutiny said.
The committee said that such an approach on major projects had been evident within the States for years.
‘We are concerned that the inclusion and progression of such a project risks embedding within the new portfolio framework the very weaknesses that the revised approach is intended to address.
‘There is a clear read-across between the issues identified in this case and the causes of previous major project failures.
‘In the absence of demonstrable improvement in governance, documentation and assurance, there is a real risk that those failures will be repeated.’
Although Scrutiny has broadly welcomed the portfolio approach and said it ‘has potential’ to improve planning, transparency and strategic alignment, it has queried whether the States gets enough information to exercise ‘meaningful oversight’ of big spending projects and said this could undermine the wider portfolio framework.
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