Q91 Mr Touhig: You looked at other sites and your department is unable to identify separate amounts spent on these potential sites.
Sir David Normington: One site reached a decision by the Secretary of State to refuse planning permission. I think that no other site got anywhere near that. A lot of the money that was spent overall, therefore, was spent on the identification of sites and then the winnowing of them down to a small number: from 80 to 65 to 40.
Q92 Mr Touhig: But you cannot identify the amount you spent on these sites.
Sir David Normington: £3.9 million has been attributed in the report to those sites.
Q93 Mr Touhig: You can identify the amount separately? I did not understand that. Perhaps the NAO can clarify that. I thought that you could not identify.
Sir David Normington: It was an apportionment that we made.
Ms Murphie: Yes, we made an apportionment of costs-
Q94 Mr Touhig: It is an apportionment; so it not the actual cost.
Ms Murphie: It is the amount of money that went on the research of development of sites for the whole programme, not just the pilot sites. We identified what we could identify for Bicester and the rest of it was assumed to be the rest.
Q95 Mr Touhig: Lick a finger and put a finger in the air, really?
Ms Murphie: It was more exact than that.
Q96 Mr Touhig: A bit more exact than that?
Ms Murphie: Yes.
Q97 Mr Touhig: How much more exact than that?
Ms Murphie: A bit more.
Q98 Mr Touhig: A bit more. Two fingers then?
Ms Murphie: Yes!
Q99 Mr Touhig: I am certainly glad, Sir David, that Mrs Touhig looks after the Touhig family finances and nobody in the Home Office. I think that I would be in trouble, budgeting on that basis! What concerns a number of us around the table today, though, is the £10 million spent upon consultants. A large amount of money, was it not?
Sir David Normington: It was.
Q100 Mr Touhig: And for very little.
Sir David Normington: £6 million was spent on project management, which included architects and cost consultants. A million was spent on planning consultants, including advisers on landscape. £450,000 was spent on traffic and transport consultants.