Holyrood seeks 'closure' over its £414 million fiasco

Key points

"The Holyrood saga has been a long haul, it's been wearing, it has also been damaging, in my view, to Scottish self-confidence in our ability to run our own affairs. And that is why I use the word 'closure' today in its full double meaning." - GEORGE REID

Story in full DISILLUSIONMENT, cynicism and £414.4 million - that was the final cost of the Scottish Parliament.

After nearly ten years in which politicians and civil servants, architects and engineers, construction firms and consultants played the blame game, Holyrood's true cost was revealed yesterday.

No-one responsible for the rise from the first estimate of between £10 million and £40 million to the eventual total lost their job.

Ministers and senior public servants, who drove the ill-fated project, did not feel it necessary to do the honourable thing. And yesterday, we learned that no-one - individual or company - will be taken to court on behalf of the taxpayer to be held legally to account for their many errors. Coming to that conclusion cost taxpayers a further £600,000.

So little wonder that, in announcing that the final bill for the home of Scotland's new democracy was £16 million below the most recent estimate of £430 million, the parliament's Presiding Officer admitted that the cost of the project was not merely monetary.

George Reid, who has won praise for doing what many others avoided - taking responsibility - conceded the nation's self-confidence, which devolution was supposed to strengthen, had been shaken by the Holyrood fiasco.

Attempting to capture the mood of the nation, Mr Reid yesterday presented the £16.1 million saving as a positive outcome of the "long haul" to conclude the project. However, he admitted the saga had "cast a dark shadow" on the country which had hoped the optimism of the devolution referendum would be carried forward to Holyrood.

While Lord Fraser's public inquiry into the project found no one "villain of the piece", Mr Reid said "everyone involved in the project - consultants, contractors, MSPs, staff - might have managed it better".

Signing off the final costings, he said the fundamental flaw, identified by Lord Fraser, was the "construction management model" for the project - which meant it was started by the then Scottish Office without final costs being attached, before being passed on the parliament.

Speaking at the parliament, Mr Reid said: "We are not trying to sweep past problems out of the way. The most we can claim is a steely determination to get a grip on the project - to get the building finished, to help get us moved on - but never, ever, to give up on the paperwork and our dedication to get back what we could for the public purse."

He added."The Holyrood saga has been a long haul, it's been wearing, it has also been damaging, in my view, to Scottish self-confidence in our ability to run our own affairs. And that is why I use the word 'closure' today in its full double meaning. Closure in the sense of finalising the accounts, but closure also in the psychological sense of finally letting go a problem and releasing oneself for new opportunities and challenges."

Margo MacDonald, the independent MSP who has been one of the project's most vocal critics, said she was pleased with the savings announced yesterday. "But if that is weighed in the balance of the value for money that this building represents to the public purse, then it wasn't value for money and we should not forget that," she added.

Graham Birse, the deputy chief executive of Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce, said: "It's for the people of Scotland to decide whether the building is value for money. However, it is clear that the purchasing process initiated by Westminster fell far short of the procedures for cost control and delivery that a business would be expected to engage in under the same circumstances."

Mr Reid revealed that to hammer down costs, the Holyrood project team went through 37 crates of documents, each containing thousands of papers, to make sure the sums about to be charged were realistic - eventually identifying the £16 million in savings.

In a parallel process, the parliament's corporate body secretly set up "Project Flora" - a group of high-powered lawyers and construction experts plus an independent arbitrator and mediator - to investigate the case for legal action against the main consultants on the project. The group of about 20, which cost £600,000 to run from December 2005 to late last year, came to the conclusion there was no guarantee that legal action would succeed.

The report to MSPs revealed 45,000 snags were identified in the parliament in October 2004. Only 13 defects remained, with seven being put right: six are still being disputed with the many contractors who have worked in the building. Of the six in dispute, five are leaks of water into the underground car park and one relates to water gathering in another part of the building.

The parliamentary authorities are still pursuing legal action over the chamber roof strut that became detached last year, forcing MSPs to meet outside Holyrood.

THE KEY PLAYERS - WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

Sarah Davidson

Sarah Davidson, right, took over as project manager in June 2001. At that time she was a 30-year-old civil servant with no major construction experience.

She was asked to play a key role in the implementation of the smoking ban and is now head of the Cabinet Secretariat. One of the high fliers in the Scottish Executive, she is destined for the top despite being central to the Holyrood project.

Lord Steel of Aikwood

David Steel was the first Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament and his entire term of office was dominated by the Holyrood controversy.

Lord Steel is sought-after as a speaker and did some lecturing on cruise ships after he retired from Holyrood. He is now an active Lib Dem member of the House of Lords.

Sir Muir Russell

Sir Muir Russell was permanent secretary at the Scottish Office and then the Scottish Executive when all the crucial decisions and major mistakes were made. He is now the principal at Glasgow University, earning a reputed

£178,000 a year. He is entitled to a pension of £75,000 to £80,000 a year, along with a lump-sum payment of between £215,000 and £220,000 from the Scottish Executive.

Barbara Doig

Barbara Doig was the project sponsor of the Holyrood building during the formative years of the project, taking over in March 1998. She was at the centre of the decision to reinstate Bovis Lend Lease to the shortlist to manage the project. Bovis went on to win the contract.

She was publicly criticised for her role in the project by Lord Fraser.

Mrs Doig returned to the Executive's research department before retiring early at the age of 58 two years ago on a good final-salary, civil service pension.

John Gibbons

John Gibbons was the Executive's chief architect at the heart of the early decisions as a ministerial adviser. He was also a go-between when relations between the architects and politicians started to become strained. He retired from the Executive in April 2005, then aged 65, but has not stopped working, nor has he dropped his link with the building. Mr Gibbons is contracted to provide architectural advice to the Scottish Parliament Corporate Body on an occasional basis.

Brian Stewart

Brian Stewart was the lead Scottish architect with the firm RMJM, Enric Miralles' Scottish partners.

Mr Stewart was clearly deeply affected by the problems by the time of the Fraser Inquiry in 2003 and sat through much of the inquiry, something the other central figures decided not to do. He was once on the verge of tears when being questioned from the witness box, saying the project was a "nightmare".

Mr Stewart was forced out of RMJM after a clash with directors in 2005.

Benedetta Tagliabue

Benedetta Tagliabue runs EMBT, the Barcelona-based architectural firm she started with her late husband, Enric Miralles. She inherited the role of chief architect when he died suddenly in 2000. She clashed with her Scottish architectural partners RMJM throughout the Holyrood construction process, but has defended the building ever since.

Still time to shake off that reputation for wasting money

GEORGE Reid has many qualities, and was a serious contributor to the Westminster parliament when he was MP for Clackmannan.

But I fear he is indulging in wishful thinking if he supposes the costs of the Scottish Parliament building are something to be submerged in the mists of time.

The spiralling escalation in the price is etched into the consciousness of many in Scotland, not least those who, unlike me, were in favour of a devolved government.

I was one of the number of Westminster MPs who have not made public criticism of MSPs. I have taken the view that for the sake of all of us, the Scottish Parliament and those who work in it should be given a chance to succeed.

My one resentment goes back to the time of Donald Dewar. Donald went on to the Today programme to tell its two million or so listeners that Tam Dalyell was "wicked and alarmist" to suggest that the Scottish Parliament would cost a penny over £40 million.

I speculate whether he believed any such thing. What is certain is that I had asked my friends in Standard Life, Scott Bell and James Stretton, about the cost of their then new building in Lothian Road - £100 million plus.

I didn't believe for a moment that Bell, Stretton and their colleagues would be hoodwinked by contractors. Their building was going to be simpler than any Scottish Parliament building.

How, I thought, could it be less than £100 million-plus? But it was on the basis of £40 million that the referendum in 1999 got a Yes vote.

Since we are now where we are, what can the Scottish Parliament do to retrieve its reputation?

The difficulty about the past is that the parliament and, by association, the MSPs and the Executive, are linked, if not with criminal waste, at least with cavalier expenditure. There is a remedy, and that is over the coming years the parliament has to gain a reputation of insisting on value for money. I do not think I do the MSPs an injustice by asserting that there are a whole range of schemes which are unnecessary and superfluous.

However, the Scottish Parliament and the Executive are soon going to be put to a test which hitherto they have not faced up to. Barnett - and the system that is associated with my close friend for 40 years, Joel Barnett, who continues to be astonished that his temporary fix to an awkward situation in the desperate economic circumstances of 1977 should have lasted so long - is going to come to an end.

The situation cannot continue whereby Scots get in public expenditure 23.7 per cent more per capita than the English.

English MPs wondering: "Are none of us good enough to do Home Office affairs for England or transport affairs for England?" look covetously at the Scottish financial settlement.

The challenge to the Scottish Parliament will be when it has to tighten its belt, is it going to be seen to spend its money wisely?

If the MSPs had been allowed to decide on their building, and requirements, they would, I believe, have imbued them with a carefulness which seems to have been, and still is, absent in these heady days when a Scottish Chancellor of the Exchequer appears as Lady Bountiful.

This is not going to continue. If they meet the challenge of sparser provision, they will restore their reputation - and George Reid's wish to forget the exorbitant cost of his building will be fulfilled.

• Tam Dalyell is the former MP for Linlithgow.

TAM DALYELL

BREAKDOWN

Scaffolding
£8.6m

MSPs' windows
£7.4m

Toilets
£2.9m

TVs, radios
£656k

Asbestos/pigeon dropping removal
£200,000

Signs
£211k

Main chamber frame
£40m

Fire alarm
£1.7m

Specialist glazing
£16m

VAT
£48.5m

Stone floors
£2.9m

Buy site
£6.3m

Landscaping
£12.7m

Fees, staff, site organisation
£82.7m

Turf
£118k

Bomb-blast testing
£222k

Lifts
£1.4m

Total construction
£276.9m

Roads
£1m

Grand total
£414.4m