System overseeing major capital projects involves ‘very little oversight’

The system overseeing major capital projects in Northern Ireland involves “little oversight” and “little accountability”, a DUP MLA has said.

Cheryl Brownlee, deputy chairwoman of Stormont’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC), criticised the system as “over-complicated”, after it emerged there has been an overspend of more than £3 billion on major capital projects.

Last week, the committee said that current arrangements for delivering large-scale capital projects in the region are “not fit for purpose” and the establishment of an independent oversight body in Northern Ireland must be considered.

A recent report said there were 78 projects managed by Stormont departments between April 2019 and last summer.

Many involve major construction work including the new Belfast maternity and children’s hospitals; the A5 and A6 and the Belfast Transport Hub.

The projects had an original approved cost of £5.7 billion, but that has now jumped to £8.74 billion.

Ms Brownlee said there is a system failure which needs to be addressed urgently.

“There’s very little independence, which means whenever there are challenges or there’s difficulties happening within these major capital projects, they aren’t picked up on time,” she told the BBC NI Sunday Politics show.

“We found the system is so over-complicated, and there’s so much bureaucracy, which is causing further confusion.”

She added: “We are really talking here over £3 billion of public money. I think it’s very, very important to caveat that, whenever I deal with constituents on a daily basis, we’re talking about pounds and pence.

“People are really, really struggling. We’re in a cost-of-living crisis. So this overspend is very, very important in terms of what actually it could be spent on, whether that be the health service or education system, childcare or the PSNI.

“This is actually a follow-up report. The first report was done in 2020 and (had) 15 recommendations. The new report has 12, and we’re talking about much of the same here.

“What we’re actually seeing is there’s very little oversight. There’s very little accountability. They haven’t taken into account the likes of social licensing.

“We’re also working with a workforce gap which hasn’t been addressed, and major capital projects are running over cost, over time, time and time again, which is incredibly frustrating.

“It’s something that I think – and I think that the PAC committee is very strong on this – that we have to take account of this, and we have to have action now, or this will just continue again and again and again.”

She said that while there is optimism among government departments, there is little implementation.

The MLA called for an annual progress report on all major capital projects.