Lay low until this blows over?
THE £30m. ‘overspend’ that of course is not – at least, not yet – an overspend may prove to be the biggest story of the year, even if rapidly-rising building costs are now a fact of life. It should certainly be the story with the most significant repercussions in the corridors of power in Sir Charles Frossard House.
Whether more civil service heads will roll as a result of the latest revelations, we don’t know. We may never know.
Will the news that not only were deputies on Health & Social Care left in the dark about the escalating costs of the proposed hospital modernisation, but those on the Policy & Resources Committee too, lead to any cultural changes?
It does beggar belief that officers could have let their political masters go into a Government Work Plan debate, effectively a shoot-out between Health and Education for the cash for the big capital project of the next few years, without the knowledge that the projected cost of one of those was, at best, unreliable.
It is very difficult to understand how we reached this point.
In another (political) life, pressure would be building from all sides for answers and appropriate responses. In this supine States, we hear next to nothing about pressure and questions, while P&R, who could, and should, be angry, circles the wagons, and heads stay low until this all blows over.