Q131 Mr Bacon: Can you write to us with that?6
Sir David Normington: I can try to-
Q132 Mr Bacon: It would be interesting to know, and then we can divide it by the cost and see how much each member of staff cost.
Sir David Normington: I can certainly try to give you a fuller breakdown.
Q133 Mr Bacon: Could you do that for us?
Sir David Normington: Yes, I can try.
Q134 Mr Bacon: Number of staff, total amount of money-divide one by the other.
Sir David Normington: I will if I can.
Q135 Mr Bacon: I have a calculator that I will lend you if you are unable to do it.
Sir David Normington: No, I can do the calculation; I am not sure whether I can find out the basic facts from GSL.
Q136 Mr Bacon: This brings me to paragraph 36. "The Home Office told us that it could not analyse separately the consultancy costs for other potential sites, such as RAF Newton and HMS Daedalus." Why was that? Why could you not do that basic breakdown?
Sir David Normington: There are two reasons for that. One is that some of the invoices that go back to 2001/2 could not be found and some could not be attributed to a specific project. Some of the reasons for that, as we have explained, were perfectly explicable in the sense that this was, to begin with, an overall project looking at first of all several hundred sites and then it was winnowed down. Some of those costs are about that.
Q137 Mr Bacon: You took over in January 2006, did you not, as Accounting Officer? The accounts you had to sign, even though they were presented to Parliament unaudited. That is almost the first thing you had to do as Permanent Secretary which is not an enviable position to be in. Those accounts referred to the period April 2004 to March 2005, presumably, did they not, the previous completed financial year?
Sir David Normington: Yes.
Q138 Mr Bacon: That is the period when all this was happening. The truth was the Home Office was in melt down during that period and the Home Secretary said it was not fit for purpose, was it not?
Sir David Normington: Some of the invoices go back further than that. If you recall, we had this exchange in detail-
Q139 Mr Bacon: I do not think I shall ever forget.
Sir David Normington: Neither will I. The introduction of the new accounting system in 2003/ 4 was the cause of the melt down.
Q140 Mr Bacon: The Adelphi accounting system. This was the one that estimated your budget as one and a half times the size of the planet.
Sir David Normington: The accounts are clean now.
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