Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Givan): I formally welcome the Minister of Justice, David Ford, and his team: PSNI Assistant Chief Constable Alistair Finlay; Rosemary Crawford, deputy director of the policing policy and strategy division in the Department of Justice; and Brendan Smyth, the acting director of central procurement of the construction division for health projects, Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety. As normal, this will be recorded and published by Hansard in due course. Minister, I hand over to you at this stage to make some opening remarks, and I am sure members will then have questions.

Mr Ford (The Minister of Justice): Thank you, Chair. I will just take a few minutes to put the record straight on where we are at this stage. My Department and Health Department fully support the Programme for Government commitment. What has changed since the last update to the Committee in July is the dramatically worsened financial environment. It is not for any security reasons, as has been alluded to in certain reports carried in the media. The project has not stopped, but nor is it currently going ahead as originally planned.

Whilst recognising the disappointment that stakeholders will feel, the steering group decided that it was necessary in the current financial situation to pause to take stock. That group includes the two departmental accounting officers, the chief executive of the Strategic Investment Board (SIB) and members of the Policing Board. The view to pause was shared by the accounting officers of the three services. This is the right thing to do, given both the concern about the current financial environment, affordability and ability to meet future running costs, and the consequent impact on likely usage and changing training needs in each of the three services. Whilst the three services, DOJ and DHSSPS are committed to providing integrated training facilities to improve public services, we cannot afford to build something that is not affordable and which no longer meets the revised needs of the three services in light of the economic reality.

Let me outline the next steps. The steering group has asked the programme board, which represents the three services, Central Procurement Directorate, the Policing Board and the Strategic Investment Board and involves the two Departments, to carry out a two-stage review. First, within two weeks, it is to establish what the present position means for the current procurement process and firm up the scope of the second stage. The second stage will look at training requirements in detail and at the three key pillars of affordability, value for money and procurability. These are fundamental to good governance and building a successful college. The steering group will report back to Ministers after a meeting a fortnight today, and we will report to the Executive.

The Chairperson (Mr Givan): Thank you for that outline, Minister. I have a number of quick questions to get some clarity. In terms of the three key pillars that you refer to that will now take place, in essence, does that mean that, whatever the outcome of the assessment of those three key pillars, the procurement process for the current Desertcreat facility has been abandoned and you will be starting from scratch with a new business case — whatever the outcome — needing to be put together and then approval sought?

Mr Ford: As I understand it, there is the potential that a new business case may be required, but that is very much on the basis of the assessments that are to be made as part of this review. It is not saying that a new business case will necessarily be required.

The Chairperson (Mr Givan): Is the current procurement process now completely abandoned?

Mr Brendan Smyth (Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety): No, the current procurement process has not been abandoned; it is still alive as we speak. We have not had any significant engagement with bidders in recent months, given the work that we have been doing on value engineering and reducing the overall cost of the scheme. That procurement has not been abandoned. It will await a decision, subject to the review of how we go ahead. Obviously, if it is significantly different from the basis on which that was predicated, it will have to change, but we cannot make that assessment yet.

The Chairperson (Mr Givan): Minister, the letter you conveyed to the Committee stated that the steering group had considered the current procurement proceeding. It did highlight a view that there were significant risks, but, overall, there was still a feeling that the procurement could proceed, although the financial environment had changed, which led to the scenario that we are facing. What are the significant risks that were referred to in proceeding with the current procurement process?

Mr Smyth: One of the current risks is the issue of construction inflation and the approval sum that we have. In very broad terms, construction inflation is impacting on this at a rate of approximately half a million pounds per month. If this is delayed for a significant amount of time, we will be outwith the approval envelope that we have. The estimated cost of the scheme is in the region of £168 million; we have an approval figure for £157 million, and we are just within the 10% tolerance on that. Were that to be delayed for any significant amount of time, it is likely that it could fall outside those limits, and that would require the resubmission of a business case, or an addendum, to get additional funding for that.

The other issue is one of confidence in the construction industry, and its willingness to participate in another competition for this. Our concern at the minute is that that confidence would be very low. Confidence would have to be built in order to make this an attractive proposition for firms to compete again.

The Chairperson (Mr Givan): Minister, in your comments in respect of this, I am hearing that this is a pause and that a decision has not been taken. However, when this was announced, you made public commentary and referred to the likes of Millisle, and indicated that other sites were now viable options that would need to be considered as part of this pause. That would seem to indicate that you, as Minister, were moving ahead of the current position that this is a pause on Desertcreat and that no decision has yet been taken. You already put into the public domain other options that now needed to be considered. Do you want to reflect on that?

Mr Ford: I do not think that I said that in terms of the current position but in answer to questions that have arisen about the potential. I do believe that there is potential that a new business case might be required that would be sufficiently changed so that we would need to look at the appropriate location for the integrated facilities. That is certainly not the position that we are in at present.

The Chairperson (Mr Givan): I think we must now be into the second week of this two-week —

Mr Ford: No, we are actually in the first week of it.

The Chairperson (Mr Givan): OK, so we will anticipate this first-phase decision being taken two weeks from today.

Mr Ford: Yes. Two weeks from today, the steering group is due to meet and will receive that report.

The Chairperson (Mr Givan): OK. I do not want to rehearse all the history on this, because it is well documented and obviously there has been a lot of criticism about how we got to this point. From my view, it is important that we find out what is going on now, but in light of how this process has been handled, from its very conception to issues around procurement, to issues around how the site was even procured — there are questions that I am now hearing that are raising confidence issues with me about how that came about, in and of itself — is this something, Minister, that you believe should now be referred to the Northern Ireland Audit Office for a forensic review of how this entire process has been managed, so that we can get to the real nub of this issue? There are very real concerns out there that this has been a botched process that has now cost the people of Northern Ireland a world-class training facility.

Mr Ford: I think that to say it has cost us a world-class training facility is a long way from where we currently are. I have no evidence to suggest that this matter should be referred to the Audit Office at this stage. I know that there are a number of allegations floating around from different people around various aspects, most of which predate my time in this post. If there are people who have specific concerns, I have no doubt that they will go to the Audit Office and report those concerns, but, at this stage, I personally have no evidence that would suggest it should be referred. There are, however, some contractual issues relating to consultancy where, as I understand it, there may be a prospect of legal action, therefore I need to be extremely careful about saying anything on those areas.

The Chairperson (Mr Givan): I am certainly of a very clear view that this needs to be forensically examined to establish what has gone wrong in this process. I do not think it is defensible to have spent over £12 million to be where we are at. This project is on life support, and it is just a matter of time before the switch is flicked, in my view. I do not think that anyone can get away with what has happened without being held to account, and we need a forensic examination of it. We need a PAC inquiry into this, and then, obviously, Committees like this can get involved at that point. I do think that, as Minister, you should consider inviting this to take place, rather than this Committee writing to the auditor and requesting that he carry out that type of work. I think it would be important for you to do that.

Mr Ford: I think you need to be careful when you use terms like this project being "on life support", waiting for the switch to be turned off. It may well be that there will be significant changes to what was originally planned. There are differences emerging in the 10 years, for example, in the training needs, never mind the issues of the numbers in the three services that might be requiring those training needs. Alistair can certainly talk about the technicalities of that if you wish, but to suggest that that means that the project is about to be turned off, as opposed to revised, is, I think, a dangerous suggestion to make at this point.

The Chairperson (Mr Givan): Revised to the point where people in Cookstown — and I will bring in Mr McGlone shortly — feel that the game is in extra time, and your view of what a revision might be could be the upgrading of three stand-alone facilities and working better together as opposed to fulfilling a Programme for Government priority commitment.

Mr Ford: Given that the commitment is to integrated training, I do not see how that Programme for Government commitment could be met in any way by revamping existing facilities, some of which are, frankly, well past their use-by date. Maybe Alistair should talk about the facilities that are needed.

Assistant Chief Constable Alistair Finlay (Police Service of Northern Ireland): It is also that we do not have the facilities. The Fire and Rescue Service, in particular, needs facilities. We need practical training facilities. We cannot build the practical training facilities that we need on our existing estate. There is no sense of us rowing back from the need. There is a responsibility on the programme board to report to the steering group on the risks, as it understands them, in terms of the public-sector funding situation. On the variability of that, it was about whether we are still building the right thing at quite a large expense to the public purse and whether it should be considered that we need a revision. However, there is no sense of any change of practical training need for the services. There is a sense of a potential change in the educational need for the Police Service and what that looks like because of developments in education and academia.

Mr McGlone: I heard the comment about what is going on now. That has been the constant refrain as this project worked its way through its machinations, which were just a mess. I have to reflect the deep disappointment that here we are again. It is Groundhog Day. People in the constituency are deeply disappointed. You talk about credibility with the people in the constituency and the construction industry. If there is a right way and a wrong way of doing a thing, you have certainly picked the wrong way. It is incredible. People are bitterly dejected and disappointed, on one level about the construction and investment and also because the project, wherever it was going to be located, was to drive on an integral part of the Patten report. People want to see that change. They want to see good, well-educated officers coming out and proper facilities for them. I have to reflect that.

With your forbearance, Chair, I have a number of questions for the Minister as we work our way through this. Who instructs the steering group to meet?

Mr Ford: I presume, as I am not a member of it, that the steering group sets its own arrangements for when it meets.

Mr McGlone: So, it just goes off and does its own thing without any ministerial direction or involvement. It just does its own thing with no accountability.

Mr Ford: No, there is accountability. The steering group is responsible for the ongoing work reporting back to two Ministers, but it is not something that the Ministers chair.

Mr McGlone: No, I would not anticipate that they chair it, but, presumably, the group is instructed to do business.

Mr Ford: It was instructed to do business a very long time ago, predating my appointment as Minister.

Mr McGlone: So, you were not aware of the last meeting where it came up with these recommendations.

Mr Ford: No, I am well aware of its meetings.

Mr McGlone: Sorry, I am just establishing that; I do not want to get the impression that you are being evasive, Minister.

Are you personally committed to a project going ahead at the Desertcreat site?

Mr Ford: I am committed to the Programme for Government commitment to provide quality, integrated training facilities for the three services —

Mr McGlone: At the Desertcreat site.

Mr Ford: That is not technically the wording of the Programme for Government.

Mr McGlone: Sorry, I am asking you specifically about the Desertcreat site: if you do not want to answer the question, that will answer it all for me. Are you committed to —

Mr Ford: I answered it in terms of my commitment, as a Minister, to the Executive's Programme for Government. That is my commitment.

Mr McGlone: Are you committed to the project going ahead at the Desertcreat site?

Mr Ford: In the face of the significant capital costs that have been outlined and potential reductions in the training requirements of the three services, including, as Alistair just spelled out, the difference between the academic classroom-type training and the practical training, I cannot say that I am committed to the current Desertcreat mark 1 proposals —

Mr McGlone: Right.

Mr Ford: — because that may not be an appropriate use of public funding in the future.

Mr McGlone: Are you committed to a project of this ilk at the Desertcreat site?

Mr Ford: I am committed to the integrated training that is required using the sort of training aspects that are in the current plan. However, as I said, it may be that a revised business case might require it to look at the best location for that. It would be dishonest to suggest that, if there is a significant reduction in the needs for the three services, it automatically continues at Desertcreat. On the other hand, Desertcreat is a site that is in existence and for which there are plans covering the training areas. Therefore, it is clearly the current number one option.

Mr McGlone: Right, I am glad that we got there; for the meantime anyway.

I want to explore the other issue around procurement. I heard what you were saying there. At this stage, it is a unilateral procurement process that is continuing with the existing project. Surely, the procurement process for your revised project — subject to this steering group that really does not report back to the Minister occasionally — is continuing with contractors who will see the writing on the wall. They are not going to bite into a procurement process that is not going to deliver on the same project that they have been advised to deliver on.

Mr Smyth: We understand the importance of building confidence in the construction industry. Given the difficulties, we have had many discussions about what steps we need to take to build that confidence. We have also spoken to the five bidders who were shortlisted some months ago to ascertain their level of interest in continuing with the programme. The response was variable: some are definitely interested, and others want to think about it. We absolutely appreciate the importance of that confidence, among not only those bidders but the whole supply side, to their willingness to be involved in this project. However we move ahead with this, we have to engage with them very closely to make sure that they believe that this is going to happen and understand the scope of it. The current procurement is still viable given the broad scope of what we advertised it at. It remains the same. If that changes significantly, we will be bound to enter into a new procurement competition.

Mr McGlone: You have partially answered the question that I was coming to next. If there is another project of reduced size or significantly reduced design, you are back into a tender process and a business case. Just refresh me: how long did the previous one take? We will not talk about the glitches in the middle. How long does it normally take? Inevitably, another planning application will have to go with it to get design issues and all that sort of stuff sorted right through to your tendering, advertising, procurement and bidders. With the best will in the world, how long should that take?

Mr Smyth: There are a lot of variables in that. There is learning gained from what we have done already, and that should help accelerate it. However, I would be dishonest if I told you that that was not going to take a considerable amount of time. If you really put me on the spot, I think that I would be talking about a period of up to two years or something like that from the start of an Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) competition to actually getting someone onsite. There are lots of variables in that depending on the scope of change and the people involved.

Mr McGlone: Mr Finlay, is your project management and indeed the Policing Board committed to Desertcreat as the location for this college?

Assistant Chief Constable Finlay: Are you asking whether the Police Service is committed to it?

Mr McGlone: Yes, and the Policing Board. I just do not know what the situation is with the Policing Board.

Assistant Chief Constable Finlay: I do not know if I want to speak for the Policing Board, but my understanding is that the Policing Board has been supportive of the programme and the project to date. The Police Service position on this is that, if we amend the scope or look at what the training needs are, we need to establish what the right site is. I do not think that the Police Service is going to say that Desertcreat is necessarily the right or wrong site, but I spoke about the differentiation between the academic and the practical, and, increasingly, the training supplied by us and the other services is practical training. Practical training makes up a significant chunk of the current plan for the existing site, and that is probably the biggest gap that we are wanting to fill.

Mr McGlone: Can you explain to me what that is?

Assistant Chief Constable Finlay: On the Desertcreat site, it is multiple firing ranges for firearms training. It is a public order village for public order training. It is a piece of mock motorway for driver engagement training and for crash training with the Fire and Rescue Service. The Desertcreat site, as currently designed, would have about 120 buildings on it, and the vast bulk of those are really in the practical training area. The area that we have some difference in reflection over time is more what we call academic training. Do we use as many classrooms? We are seeing a movement in policing, and this is worldwide. There is a move towards more pre-employment training, so, instead of people training with us from the beginning, there is lots of evidence of people now doing training in universities and further education colleges, where they will do relatively short courses and then come to an employer, potentially policing, with a number of qualifications. That can include a first aid qualification, a driving licence and a basic law and procedures qualification, all delivered by somebody else.

Mr McGlone: With the greatest respect, that is not unusual in any walk of life or any place of employment.

Assistant Chief Constable Finlay: It is not. No, it is not unusual. We are saying that those changes, as they seep through into policing, potentially affect the numbers of people whom we train. The numbers we train will depend on what size our budget is and what we can afford going forward, and the variability of that was a key factor of the uncertainty that the Chief Constable took when making his position to the steering group. We have changed some of this training relatively recently. We have changed the length of time the probationers or trainees come in to train. Until this current intake, we were training at 33 weeks; we are now training at 22 weeks. They get different practical training, they do a lot of pre-arrival work online and they do a lot of online work in the college. That digitisation and that ability to do things through the Internet have hanged how we do things over time.

We are also now sending our trainers out to districts and departments rather than bringing people into the college. That is another change in training, where, instead of needing a classroom in a block of classrooms, we gather people together in a room at a particular place in the district and do the training there. That does not abstract them from the district, and it means that we get higher attendance rates. It also means that we cut down on the allowances and expenses that people get for coming to training when we are only paying the trainers to go there. We have put significant changes in place, and, as the public sector finance piece gets firmer, increasingly, we are drilling down on costs and looking for all sorts of ways to make that cheaper. That impacts on the scope of what we need a police training establishment to look like.

Mr McGlone: I am finding it hard to establish why this is a new thing. I just do not understand that, because it is not new to any of the rest of us who have seen this type of thing happening. You are not telling me that the police are in the dark ages with training, are you?

Assistant Chief Constable Finlay: No, I am not. We have moved over recent times, and police training has moved over different times around how police training is done. That is different in different areas. In the private sector, for example, Ryanair requires that you pay for your training. If you do not meet its standard, you do not get your money back. There are different models, and some of them have crept into public sector areas. We have not got all of that yet, but we are seeing some variability in all of that. We need to take that into account. For example, with this tranche of trainees wanting to join the Police Service, we have moved from requiring no qualifications to requiring five GCSEs.

There is movement in how we go about our business. It is not that we are in the dark ages; it is about setting our sights on how we do this, and there are some fundamental changes in how we deliver that training.

Mr McGlone: Chair, with your forbearance, I have one final question for Mr Finlay. What does that mean for the new project — or the revised project, I should say?

Assistant Chief Constable Finlay: It means us looking at the size that we anticipate our organisation will be, because we have already reduced the number of training days that were required. A lot of those training days are driven by national policy and by College of Policing minimum standard policy. We are looking to the College of Policing, because across the UK the cost of that is a matter of concern. If the college is changing some of that, that will change the variability in the number of training days that are required. We are looking at the size of the organisation, the policy that is required and the type of training. One point that I will emphasise is that we do not have the practical training areas. We need more of those, and we need them to be fit for purpose. That was the great advantage in the configuration of the project at Desertcreat.

Mr McGlone: Mr Smyth, I have just one brief question. Is your Department committed to a project at Desertcreat?

Mr Smyth: I need to be careful. If I could make a point for the record, let me say that I was introduced as part of the team dealing with health projects. However, I have moved.

The Chairperson (Mr Givan): You have moved?

Mr Smyth: Yes, I am now in the Department of Finance and Personnel as part of the Central Procurement Directorate (CPD), so I am not really in a position to speak on the health team's behalf. I am here only as the COPE adviser.

Mr McGlone: We do not have anybody here from health?

Mr Smyth: No.

Mr McGlone: OK. Thank you, Chair.

The Chairperson (Mr Givan): I will bring in other members. I gave Mr McGlone a lot of latitude because this is a constituency interest, but I ask that members continue with his line of questioning. We do not have time for statements on this project, so if we could keep it to questions as far as possible, that would be helpful.

Mr Frew: I will go straight into questions. You talked about trying to provide or instil confidence in the construction industry. You said that numerous times here today, but you have not told us the method you would use to actually do that. You told us that some of the historical bidders would be interested again, but, given that all those bidders had to be consortia because of the scale of the project, how can we instil the confidence that this something that would be worth bidding for and that would say that, at the end of it, there would be a worthwhile project?

Mr Smyth: I can answer some elements of this question, but other points are of a more political nature that I am not qualified to answer. Where the technical aspects are concerned, we can consider breaking the project down into smaller elements. We have had significant discussions about enabling works and what you might do about building a perimeter or some of the access roads to the site. Those are the sorts of elements that will give contracting entities the confidence that this scheme is really going to happen. There are other aspects about where the risk lies with contractors and on issues such as quantities and so on. Is it better for the authority to carry those risks, or is it appropriate for the contractor to carry them? Those are the types of elements that we believe can build confidence with the contracting industry.

We have had quite significant discussions with the five shortlisted bidders about those issues in a generalised way, and we have taken on board their comments about what they feel we need to do to give them the confidence to continue with the process.

Assistant Chief Constable Finlay: If I can add to that, in informal discussions and contacts that I have had with the construction industry, I can say that the lack of confidence is not about the Desertcreat project per se; it is about large-scale public-sector projects. It is a broader piece than this, as this is just one example that the industry reflects to me of the amount of effort that a contractor has to make to get into a position to bid and suchlike, but they then find that a number of projects in Northern Ireland have not proceeded. It creates in them a lack of confidence about investing in that front-end piece.

Mr Frew: Minister, do you have any comment? Obviously, the business and construction industry has looked to government to help it out here with the downturn, yet here we are. While this is not the only project, this is the one that typifies and illustrates the problem of government being found wanting with assisting the private sector. This was a great project that was heralded as just that, and now with everything that has happened, I would not be surprised if construction companies ran away from it.

Mr Ford: Brendan and Alistair told you the technical ways in which we might enhance confidence, particularly if it was possible to break the project into smaller individual contracts. Apart from anything else, that would make it easier for some of our local businesses to look into bidding without having to form those consortia. I think that the political confidence will come if there is a proper review of the needs at this stage.

You are informed by the steering group's recommendation, which is based on sound financial arguments. The Executive will then take a decision on how to proceed. I think that that will give a degree of political confidence, especially if some of the practical issues that Brendan and Alistair talked about are being addressed. That will give a degree of confidence that perhaps this is not, as has been seen, a project that was too big and that has created difficulties, because it might be considered a project that is a series of smaller contracts that are viable for local businesses.

Mr Frew: You talked about a review. There is a two-week review, and there may be a further review after that, but you already had an eight-week review between March and July this year, I think. What did that review do?

Mr Ford: It looked at the capital costs of what I have called Desertcreat mark I. This review is looking at both the procurement position arising from that and scoping out in the second phase what I talked about, which is the review of training needs. Alistair talked about the detail of how those are changing.

Mr Frew: If you were to divide this project into smaller chunks, which would then mean that more of our industry could bid for it and afford to bid — I suppose that is the way to put it. If this does not go the right way, thousands of pounds have been spent on this that could well have wiped out some of our companies. If you break that down into smaller bits and pieces, who is to say that it will not be done through a staggered process over many years? Also, what is the logic of having it all on one site?

Mr Ford: The logic of having it on the one site is the integrated training opportunities that arise from having it there. That has always been the key point of this project. Breaking a contract down into different sections does not seem to me to necessarily tie in to the question of lengthy phasing at all. It is a matter of getting one body to carry out something that is in its area of expertise while another company or consortium deals with other aspects that are in its area of expertise. I think that is different from suggesting that that automatically means that you are going to phase it out over a long period. The reality is that all three services need quality training facilities at this time.

Mr Frew: Yes, but no matter what we do in the future, we will review this, assess it, redesign it and come up with a price. It will go into and stay in the system, it will be bogged down in the system and it will not come out the other end. All those people may have bid again and may even have been awarded contracts. The thing will still be stuck, and, at the end of that, the PSNI training regime will move on, the way that people are trained in the health sector will move on and we will be in the same position, albeit that it will be five or seven years down the line. How can you give us confidence that things have changed, that the environment has changed or that decision-making processes have speeded up?

Mr Ford: We need to be careful, given the arcane nature of some of our decision-making processes in and around this Building. I cannot give you complete confidence today, but you should not sit here making a series of statements as though they were statements of fact, all of which are entirely negative. We have a process that is likely to be of benefit, whatever way we proceed for work that has already been done. That is the kind of issue that enables decisions to be taken better and more speedily, accepting Brendan's point that, if we need to do significant revision, it will be a lengthy process. However, the work that has been done is not all lost; it will inform what goes ahead, depending on how many changes there might or might not be.

Mr Frew: Why can you not just cut off buildings and have the design?

If that has all been itemised and tendered for, why can you not just cut off the bits that you do not require?

Mr Ford: The reality is that you might be in that position, but that is why we need the training needs assessment over the next two to three months.

Assistant Chief Constable Finlay: On that, we completed the value engineering term in eight to 10 weeks, whereby we sought to take further costs out of the bill to try to get it in within the cost envelope with the capital consents that we had. We did not manage to do that, but we have taken as much out of it as we can. If we had taken any more out, it was going to change the overall functionality. I think that that change in the overall functionality becomes key because, actually, we cannot afford to build what we were wanting to. By taking stock and looking at the functionality, we have to decide what functionality we actually need. It may be that we separate the academic piece from the practical piece. Speaking for the Police Service and, if I may, the Fire and Rescue Service, that practical piece is the bit that we need more. That is the bigger part of this project. If we decide to do the academic piece in a different way or on a smaller scale, we may be able to move around that. The purpose of this review is to look at that. It is not about giving up what we have invested already in the design, what we have discovered through the design and where we have got to with the value engineering that has taken us to the cost price of where we are. If the preferred bidder had been able to hold on to its price, we would not be having this discussion. We would be building —

The Chairperson (Mr Givan): I am keen to bring in other members.

Mr Frew: That is something that I am keen to talk about because, the last time that you were here, Mr Finlay, you stated that construction inflation has been the enemy defeating us all so far. That is not the enemy: the enemy is the time that the processes in this tendering exercise have taken.

Assistant Chief Constable Finlay: Both processes have to take a certain amount of time for procurement and for the governance processes that are involved. Construction inflation runs at a certain rate, and it depends on the overall envelope. We are at the upper margins of the consent envelope.

The Chairperson (Mr Givan): I am happy to bring other members in at the end if things are left out. I know that some members have an Agriculture Committee meeting and that the Minister is also under time pressure, so I will get round as many members as quickly as possible.

Mr Elliott: I will be as brief as possible. Thank you very much for the presentation. How much has been spent on the project so far?

Mr Ford: Rosemary can give us the figures more quickly than I can.

Ms Rosemary Crawford (Department of Justice): The amount that has been spent so far is £9·7 million.

The Chairperson (Mr Givan): What does including the cost of the procurement of the site bring it to?

Ms Crawford: The cost of the site was £2·85 million, which brings the total to £12·5 million. I kept those figures separate because the cost of the site is not included in the overall capital cost of the project.

The Chairperson (Mr Givan): I appreciate that, but it is still the overall cost.

Mr Elliott: In a presentation on 14 November 2013, there was an indication that redress may be sought against the design team. Has that happened?

Assistant Chief Constable Finlay: It has not happened yet. As we discussed at the Committee previously, the legal advice coming from senior counsel was that that should happen at the end of a process.

Mr Elliott: At the end of what process? We have been through several processes.

Assistant Chief Constable Finlay: The question for us now going back into the programme board is to get further advice from counsel on whether where we are now with this pause is an appropriate time to seek to engage on those particular issues, which have gone on for some time. I know that how that continued has been a matter of concern for members of the Committee, and that is a matter for the programme board, which meets this afternoon as it happens. That will be a discussion therein, and it will get that advice.

Mr Elliott: I am slightly surprised that there was an indication at the start of the presentation that there have been no discussions with the bidders in recent times. Mr Smyth, you said that you talked to them some months ago. Why have there not been any recent discussions? My recollection of that discussion here of 14 November was that the bids held only until December 2013. The bids are now a year out of date from their holding position, so why have there not been further discussions with the bidders? Can we not be clear? Has this particular project gone now? I do mean that not in the sense of not having a training college or a safety college but of this particular project that was bid for and awarded being gone.

Mr Smyth: I will maybe comment on that. We have never awarded the project. At one stage, we appointed a preferred bidder. We went through that process, and it was clear from the discussions that we had with the consortia that they were not able to maintain their price. So, that collapsed that element of the process. Our contingency position in the event of that happening was outlined at the very start of the process, and it was that we would revert to a straight lowest-price competition. That has been our intention. The bidders have all been aware of that strategy and proposal. The value engineering exercise to bring the scheme back within the affordability limits took place early in the summer. We are now faced with these other constraints. At this stage, we could go out to bidders. Clearly, given the discussions on the training needs and the need to re-examine this, we do not know any longer whether that is the correct element to purchase. There has to be a review to see whether we need all the classrooms and all the academic training and whether this is the right solution. Until we get certainty about that, we cannot go back out to the market.

The process is still valid. We take legal advice on this as we are going through it. As I said, as long as it is generally of the same scale and we believe that it fits within the description of the original advertisement, we can go back out to those five bidders. First, we would have to ascertain whether we are going to get competition between three of them. I think that we have taken a view on how many of those bidders we need to ensure competition to ensure value for money. If that is the case, it is still alive and we can go out. That has been our intention up until very recently.

Mr Elliott: It will not be the same project as originally bid for.

Mr Smyth: That is to be determined, I think.

Assistant Chief Constable Finlay: That is down to the determination of the review that will go forward. It will determine the scale of that project, and we will then have to reflect that back for procurement advice. If the scale has changed so materially, we would have to do something different. That is my sense. Not to do that would expose us to legal challenge, because other economic operators would say that, had it been that size the first time, they would have wanted to pitch for it. We have to do the review first to see what that looks like and then consider the procurement implications.

Mr Elliott: Finally, we have gone through a series of difficulties with this since it started. Obviously, the procurement was poor — I will use that term. They could not meet the price that was originally in the budget. The preferred bidder's timescale ran out almost a year ago. Minister, would you describe this entire process as a mess from start to finish?

Mr Ford: It does not matter what I choose to describe it as. That is very easy. The reality is —

Mr Elliott: It is important, Minister.

Mr Ford: The question "Would you describe it as a mess?" does not actually get us anywhere at the present time.

Mr Elliott: Absolutely, but would you describe it as a mess from start to finish?

Mr Ford: I am concerned to ensure that it is not a mess.

Mr Elliott: Has it been so far? We need to be clear about whether you have confidence in the process so far.

Mr Ford: We can highlight difficulties, and, clearly, we have already referred to the potential legal issues relating to consultants and pricing. As I said then, I need to be careful that I do not stray into that area. The reality is that we have had those problems. The adjectives that I use do not achieve anything at this stage.

Mr Elliott: Do you want to sweep all of what has happened and the difficulties that there have been under the carpet?

Mr Ford: I am not sure how you describe it as sweeping under the carpet when it has been made clear that there are potential legal issues to be followed up. That is not sweeping it under the carpet; that is taking it very seriously.

Mr Elliott: Do you at least have confidence in the current process?

Mr Ford: I have confidence in the process that is carrying forward at the present time to ensure that, in the light of the very different financial circumstances, we get the best possible Community Safety College arrangements for the people of Northern Ireland.

That is a much more sensible thing to ask me about than the adjectives that I might apply to processes that started before I became Minister.

Mr Elliott: From recollection, you have been Minister since 2009.

Mr Ford: It is actually 2010.

Mr Elliott: Quite a lot of this has gone on in the last two years, including all the discussions that I referred to. We are entitled to an answer. This Committee is entitled to know whether the Minister has confidence in the process that went before. You suggested referring it to the Audit Committee, and I support that. We need to know from the Minister whether there is confidence in the process that went before, as well as in the process that is now under way.

Mr Ford: As I said, the process started before I became Minister. I do not have access to information about what went on previously. I am not particularly interested in applying adjectives to that prior process. I am concerned about ensuring that we now make the best possible arrangements to get the community safety college that we wish to see.

The Chairperson (Mr Givan): It is at least embarrassing for you as Minister, because I recall you asserting in the Assembly some time ago that you would be doing the first spadework on this site. You can outline that you went to the Executive about this and had to get some kind of urgent procedure to allow things to keep advancing. You have been party to this process while you have been Minister. I do not think that it is fair to say that all this happened under a different watch, because you did not take actions as Minister to advance the current process.

Mr Ford: I did not say that all of it happened under a different watch. I said that the process started under a different watch. It is certainly the case that I and a previous Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety gave commitments to advance the process. However, we can do that only on the basis of the proper procedures being followed through the proper structures, which is the programme board and the steering committee reporting to us, not Ministers taking unilateral action.

Mr Poots: Were we to build this college, how much will it cost a year to run?

Mr Ford: That is entirely a function of what we now decide is appropriate.

Mr Poots: What was on the table for how much it will cost to run?

Mr Ford: The reality is that we are taking stock on the three services' appropriate training needs. Until we know what those are, it is impossible to state what the running costs would be.

Mr Poots: How much were you looking at the running costs being?

Mr Ford: Do we have a figure for that at this stage?

Assistant Chief Constable Finlay: We know the additionality. This is a bit of a —

Mr Poots: Do you want to tell us?

Assistant Chief Constable Finlay: Yes. This is a bit of a technical calculation working from plans, but it looked as though it would cost the Police Service an additional £2·8 million a year to run it.

Mr Poots: What about the Fire Service and the Prison Service?

Assistant Chief Constable Finlay: They had much smaller proportions. I am not sure of their figures. My focus, understandably, is on the cost to the Police Service. We will have the bulk of the use of the site, so the bulk of the cost will fall to us.

Mr Poots: It is a significant issue for the Fire Service in that it will be closing stations to proceed with the site. I was trying to elicit their costs and, indeed, those of the Prison Service. We do not yet know what the consequences would be for the Prison Service, because no one will give us the answer.

Obviously, the £12·5 million would be lost if we did not proceed with this particular site. Indeed, a considerable amount will be lost in any event. How can we actually achieve savings in bite-sized chunks? I am not saying that you cannot, but I am asking how you can achieve it. Do you drop your motorway, for example? Do you not bother diverting the river? I know that you are spending around £50 million on work underneath the ground, so is there the ability to make considerable savings on that element of it?

Mr Ford: We need to be clear first of all. My understanding is that we are talking about something like £29 million for infrastructure costs, including the security fence, roadways, service ducts and foundations of buildings. That is rather less than £50 million, and not all the work is below the ground.

Mr Poots: That is the more recent proposal; it is not the initial one.

Mr Ford: I am not aware that there was ever £50 million for work below the ground.

Assistant Chief Constable Finlay: That is my understanding.

Mr Poots: How do you make the savings in bite-sized chunks?

Assistant Chief Constable Finlay: There are two different questions in that. First, we will decide in the review what elements of the overall concept can either be downscaled or removed completely. The bite-sized chunks that were talked about would be an alternative procurement route, whereby instead of having a single economic operator who builds the whole thing, we would split it into themes or smaller parcels of work, whether that is ground works or different parts. That is where the bite-sized chunks came from.

Stage 1 is for us to undertake the review to see what elements we think should either be downscaled or removed in the scope of the training facility, what the consequence of that is, what remains, and what the costing is. We are in the position where we have all the detailed costing information from the new cost consultants who were part of the design consortium. We will be in a position relatively quickly after the analysis of the training needs to see the consequences of that for the capital build. We will then be able to discuss with Brendan and colleagues the procurement route that would give effect to that.

Mr Poots: Is the training tourism element of it being parked? Are we looking just at our basic training needs?

Assistant Chief Constable Finlay: Yes. Training tourism is not part of the business case or the rationale —

Mr Poots: Was it ever?

Assistant Chief Constable Finlay: It has been spoken about, but it was never in the business case. The business case has to deal with the facts of the three services' training demands. There was a notion that this would be an enhancement value and a useful thing, particularly in the context of the amount of work that the Police Service was doing with other parties, primarily through NI-CO. Our position on that has changed. In the current construct and with our current funding, we are not able to afford to send people to other countries, nor are we able to afford the training time and space to bring people in. So, we have been working with NI-CO and managing some disappointment among countries who might want to take advantage of that.

Equally, that is not just us. The number of global law enforcement bodies coming together to train or to have conferences has reduced, and the amount of spend that is coming out of FBI, the Canadian service and the suchlike has reduced. The amount of that that is going around is much smaller than it might have been five or more years ago. This takes us back to the "world class" comment, but primarily we want to a build a fit-for-purpose training facility to deliver world-class training. I think that that is an important distinction.

Mr Poots: I have more questions, but I will leave it for today.

Mr A Maginness: I have just one quick question. If this project does not go ahead, what happens to the £53 million that has been provided for in the current Budget?

Mr Ford: The simple answer is that it is DFP's responsibility to discuss that with the Treasury. It was specifically allocated for the Community Safety College, and it is time-limited. Any changes to that will be a matter for DFP to follow up.

Mr McCartney: Apologies for being late. I apologise in advance if I ask a question that has been answered previously. I do not want to repeat some of the questions that have been asked, but I think that we all share the general concern. One of my concerns is that, at the last briefing, we talked about recouping some of the costs of the professional fees, yet, four or five months on, there is nothing in place to do that.

Assistant Chief Constable Finlay: No. As you may recall from the last couple of sessions, we were working with the very firm legal advice that we did that at what was described as the end of the process. Mr Elliott asked when the end of that process was. The programme board meets this afternoon, which will be the first time that it has met since the steering group met. We are working on the commissioning and the delivery of the steering group's work.

The question of where we are now will go back to senior counsel. If we pause this in this particular place, is this the right time to seek to resolve that issue? We will take that advice. I know, because I have been speaking on other issues, that senior counsel has only just returned to Northern Ireland. They have not been available because they have been out of the country for a time, so that commissioning will happen this afternoon.

Mr McCartney: Thank you. What about the public perception of this? Obviously, there is a Programme for Government commitment — that has been stated — but how much money is in place for the project to be taken forward?

Assistant Chief Constable Finlay: We had capital consents of £157 million. That would be phased over the years for delivery and suchlike, and we would work with colleagues in DOJ with DFP to get the phasing done appropriately. Our current capital consent envelope is £157 million.

Mr McCartney: Do you understand why there would be a degree of public concern? There was £157 million in place to build a training college for three services for a population of one and a half million and yet we cannot seem to deliver it.

Assistant Chief Constable Finlay: I think that we would understand the concern around the delays in the project. From the services' perspective, our training facilities have been ageing, and we have been anticipating the delivery of new training facilities for some years. There is no dragging of feet from the services' perspective and there is frustration among the services about our own inability to deliver this, but those frustrations have arisen, as we have discussed with the Committee, at a number of different issues: the cost envelope, the design, the changes around that, the procurement and now the public sector finance changes that have led us to the conclusion that we need to take another review rather than seeking to press ahead and unnecessarily build the wrong thing for the wrong time.

Mr McCartney: No, I accept the latter part of your point, but, looking at this from the beginning, practically £160 million has been set aside. It is hard to imagine how anyone could not come up with a college to fit the needs. It is mind-blowing, nearly.

Assistant Chief Constable Finlay: Well, there are two aspects to that. First, if this was a conventional college, you could build it very quickly, because it would be a box with relatively square rooms and flexible space. The vast bulk of this is not: it is a quite complicated design in the practical training areas, taking into account all of the necessary health, safety and risk assessments that have to go with that. For example, we have to consider the firing ranges and all the design features that have to go into that to ensure we have the best, most fit-for-purpose and appropriate facilities. That is design that takes longer than that for a conventional college. The conventional college bit is relatively straightforward, as is fitting that on to the land. That design is now done. The question now is how best we use that design as we move forward.

Mr McCartney: Is there a comparable college somewhere else that you could look at say, "That is what they got for £160 million; why could we not do that?".

Assistant Chief Constable Finlay: There are other facilities in the United States and Canada. One issue that has been before the Committee has been the design and Perkins+Will, the contractor. It won the procurement competition to be the designer on the basis of its involvement in that type of works in other parts of the world.

Mr McCartney: Part of the problem is that people hear that there is £160 million available but think that it is being stretched out, and that stretching out is what has put us into the position that we are in today.

Assistant Chief Constable Finlay: I am not sure that anyone is stretching it out.

Mr McCartney: Well, I think that I made this point in the last meeting that, if someone comes along and tells you that you have £157 million to do something, then I find it difficult to understand how, with all of the professionalism that is there, we cannot come within budget. There might be a view that contractors feel that they could build it for £160 million, but if they ask for £180 million, they may get it, so, the temptation is to come up with a figure of £180 million.

Assistant Chief Constable Finlay: Since the procurement exercise in which the preferred bidder could not hold its price, a detailed costing evaluation has been done by the cost consultants to put a more realistic figure on that. Re-costing the project was the starting point. We then redesigned the value engineering to take cost out. That has left us in a position where what we have on the table cannot be built for the capital sum we have. It is now about what bits will come out. That is where the review will come in.

Mr McCartney: I accept that, but there was no flagging-up operation in place in the middle of the process to detect that it was going over budget. That is why we are having the discussion of the first question of the professional fees. Sufficient rigour was not built into the process to detect that people were going over budget. I might be wrong, but I think that the temptation was there, and people felt that it did not matter about the budget that was on the table and they would be able to stretch it out.

Mr Smyth: I will address that point, Mr McCartney. I think that I mentioned at one of the earlier meetings that we got regular monthly reports from the design team on the projected cost of the college. I recall that, for at least a year, that varied somewhere between the parameters of £98 million and £104 million as things moved in and out of the design. There was an absolute consistency about the reporting of that by the design team. The competence of that advice is the issue that we still have with the design team, and it clearly had a critical impact on the project.

Significant changes have been made to the design team at a very senior level, and there was a complete change of cost consultants within the design consortia. I am speaking only on behalf of the centre of procurement expertise (COPE), but I have had regular contact with the team that are delivering it from day to day, and the team and I have a lot more confidence in the cost consultants who are currently engaged in the process than those who were initially in place.

There were mechanisms to flag that up, and there was an independent review of elements of the cost. Unfortunately, the failure of the design team as a whole led to that not being effective. However, there were mechanisms in place to try to address the very concern you identified.

Assistant Chief Constable Finlay: It is fair to say that, if the design team had got it right the first time, we would not be having these conversations and the college would be virtually finished, if not already finished.

Mr McCartney: I will finish with this point. I do not think that we have been told why the design team was so wrong.

Assistant Chief Constable Finlay: That is where we have to go with the legal advice. It is about how we get into the detail of that and get redress.

The Chairperson (Mr Givan): It is fair to say that the current team is not the same team that was in place before. However, to lay it all at the door of the design team is a little disingenuous. At the last meeting, Brendan said:

That does not say a lot about the people who were responsible for overseeing the project, the head of which was replaced by you, Mr Finlay.

Assistant Chief Constable Finlay: Clearly lessons were learned from that experience.

The Chairperson (Mr Givan): A very costly lesson has been learned from the way the project team managed the project. I accept that the critical failure was on the part of the design team, Perkins+Will, and, hopefully, legal action is being taken. However, there was an acknowledgement in the last meeting that the levels of scrutiny that are now being applied by the project board were not being applied before you came on board.

Alistair, I have a quick point for you. You have obviously been in charge of the project whilst you have been acting Deputy Chief Constable. Is it the intention for you to remain responsible for the project?

Assistant Chief Constable Finlay: No. I think that Mr Harris will assume responsibility. He has been made Deputy Chief Constable and will be there for the next five years and so on. I will take it forward in the short term to, if you like, finish where this has taken us to. The next generation of the project will be led by Mr Harris as the chair, but I will remain on the programme board. That is a position that I was in before Judith retired.

The Chairperson (Mr Givan): Has Mr Harris not sought to delegate to you to keep going in the role?

Assistant Chief Constable Finlay: In fairness, I volunteered to continue. However, I think that he feels that it is appropriate for the Deputy Chief Constable to lead the project team.

The Chairperson (Mr Givan): We will take one more member and then wrap it up.

Mr Douglas: I will be very quick. I have a couple of quick questions. My first question is to Rosemary. You mentioned the combined figure of about £12 million. Obviously, there are ongoing daily costs for security, insurance and all that. Do you have a rough idea of how much the project is still costing monthly or annually?

Ms Crawford: Do you mean the site?

Mr Douglas: Yes.

Ms Crawford: I do not have that information at my fingertips. Alistair, do you have it?

Assistant Chief Constable Finlay: I do not. We get some income, as we have previously let the land out to a farmer. We have done another short-term let to maintain the use of the land and have allowed the use of the land for certain purposes. Some work goes on to maintain things like hedgerows and ground maintenance. That work is limited and we check the site regularly. I do not have an exact figure, but I can write to you and give you that.

Mr Douglas: I have a question for Brendan. The Minister talked about the business case. I assume that an economic appraisal was carried out and signed off by somebody somewhere along the line.

Mr Smyth: At that stage, I was in the Department of Health. Both Departments signed off on that business case. The option that was chosen demonstrated considerable benefit over three separate sites, and my understanding is that, with the addendum, that is still the case.

Mr Douglas: Will there have to be a new economic appraisal or will it be updated?

Mr Smyth: That is probably a subject of discussion with DFP. It will probably depend on the scope of the change and whether that can be accommodated by means of an addendum or requires a new case.

Mr Douglas: I have been involved with economic appraisals over the years, and one that I was involved in took two years from start to completion.

Mr Smyth: They can do.

Mr Douglas: One of the options in the economic appraisal is to do nothing. What would be the cost of doing nothing?

Mr Smyth: I think that it is fair to say that there was not a do-nothing option, as that was not viable. There is a base option that brings things up to basic health and safety standards. That was a significant expenditure. I cannot recall exactly, but I think that, for Garnerville, it might have been something of the order of £45 million.

Assistant Chief Constable Finlay: The figure in my mind is £46 million. The option was not quite do nothing, but it would cost that amount to upgrade the existing facilities properly. That would not, however, give us any of the tactical training facilities or benefits.

Mr Douglas: Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr Givan): We will finish with a couple of residual questions from members.

Mr McGlone: Minister, with the alleged commitment for the £53 million that was given to you, was there anything that said that additional moneys would follow? In other words, was there a longer-term financial commitment to the project or to a project?

Mr Ford: My understanding is that the £53 million is the commitment from the Treasury to the Community Safety College project. It is time-limited, so any issues of rollover or diversion would have to be discussed between DFP and the Treasury.

Mr McGlone: From what I have heard from Mr Smyth, it could take two years, even with the best will in the world. Some of us have sat through council meetings through which council officials brought this project to fruition. An application was submitted for the project 10 years ago. If it will be two years in the making, you will clearly have a bit of an overlap of a year at least. Are you aware of the Department of Finance and Personnel making a robust case to the Treasury to secure that £53 million for the project, which may take a year beyond that before it even gets to the stage of a brick being laid? Maybe I should address that question to Mr Smyth.

Mr Smyth: That probably falls outside my remit, Mr McGlone, but I am aware of ongoing conversations between DFP and Treasury regarding the project and regarding that end-year flexibility and carry-over of moneys.

Ms Crawford: DOJ officials work closely with colleagues in DFP on that. At the minute, the end-year flexibility pot sits at £78 million. We continually update colleagues in DFP on the progress that the project is making so that they are aware of what the requirement might be. The baseline amount that DOJ has for this year was originally £15·7 million. Because we know that we will not spend quite as much this year as had been envisaged, we have already made an easement back to the Executive in the October monitoring round, and that amount of £7·2 million has already been reallocated. We will continue to look at the in-year position. We will look at it again come January monitoring and will continue to work closely with colleagues in DFP so that they know what the position is, what the profile of spend is likely to be over future years and what, therefore, the requirement will be in future spending reviews.

Mr McGlone: Is there a possibility that that £53 million could be lost?

Ms Crawford: That will be entirely a matter for the Department of Finance and Personnel, working with Treasury.

Mr Poots: In terms of what happened, I assume that no one is suggesting that the constructors conspired to hike the price up and therefore it is inflated. Consequently, the design team got it wholly and completely wrong to the tune of £30 million or £40 million. Brendan indicated that it was independently reviewed: by whom?

Mr Smyth: By another local cost consultant, White Young Green.

Mr Poots: Is the COPE still using that consultancy?

Mr Smyth: That consultancy is still being used. The question is probably more around the information that it was given to review, but it is tied up in the assessment of the design team performance and where we take that, with potential legal action. It is probably wrong for me to stray any further into that.

Mr Poots: So it was not their fault, because they did not get the right information. Why did they not get the right information?

Mr Smyth: That is part of that exercise.

The Chairperson (Mr Givan): Minister and your team, thank you very much for coming to the Committee.