Q21 Chairman: Sir Brian is laughing at that.
Sir Brian Bender: I think it is fair to say that there was some delay after we took over because we had to put the project management capability together, so, although we had a lot of experience and some expertise in our team, we then had to put together a team that would make sure we could do that, and that would explain why there was therefore some delay.
Q22 Chairman: Just remind me how much this has all cost the taxpayer?
Sir Brian Bender: For the taxpayer I think the sum is £140 million.
Q23 Chairman: And it is how many years late?
Sir Brian Bender: It is about five or six years late. There is a question about how you cost that.
Q24 Chairman: If you coped so well without these labs why did we need them in the first place?
Sir Brian Bender: I hope, Chairman, that from the visit you and Mr Touhig made yesterday you would have seen that the excellent way that the NPL has coped is essentially through a slight Heath Robinson-type approach.
Q25 Chairman: It has been through a slight Heath Robinson-type approach?
Sir Brian Bender: Idonot know how much of the old facilities and the old buildings you saw, but I think it says a lot for the ingenuity of British scientists that they sort of strung things together, they put fans Department of Trade and Industry, Serco Investments Ltd, John Laing plc and Abbey National plc here, they put baZes there, and itis quite remarkable that the NPL has remainedamong the topthree such institutes in the world without such facilities.
Q26 Mr Touhig: CanIecho the Chairman's remarks about our visit yesterday. Itwas a first-class visit. We paid tribute to the staff there who are working in a little bit more than Heath Robinson conditions and are actually making some of this work, and I think are probably are working in inferior conditions to the ones they are leaving. Sir Brian, have you ever built anything?
Sir Brian Bender: I am not sure the Committee really wants to know about my DIY ability but the answer is no.
Q27 Mr Touhig: Garden walls?
Sir Brian Bender: The answer is no. I have not been responsible for construction and, as for my DIY capabilities, my wife is glad I have now got to the level of seniority that I can pay someone else to do it.
Q28 Mr Touhig:Webuiltahouse and thank God my wife was the clerk of works because she ensured that when the work was not right it was pulled down and started again and the whole job was kept to the specification. We met people yesterday who were certainly consulted about the design and the planning and so on, but then there was a break and there were things that they told us about yesterday that certainly would have been spotted had they been a bit more involved. As I say, my wife was there constantly monitoring the project. Do you not think there was a failure somewhere to keep those people directly involved right throughout the whole project?
Mr Dawes: Certainly at the outset, as you might have picked up, we did have a lot of involvement from the scientists in negotiating the specifications. It was not simply a question of handing over the output specifications, "Here they are". There was a process of negotiation with the contractor and with the engineers. Subsequent to that, when there were issues which arose, we again got the scientists involved in trying to reach compromises or accommodations for some of the issues that were coming up.
Q29 Mr Touhig: But you got involved, Mr Dawes, when it started going wrong.
Mr Dawes: Yes.
Q30 Mr Touhig: Why were they not involved right the way through?We talked topeople yesterday, and they planned it so it was an excellent visit, who said to us-they said to me certainly-that if they had been more deeply involved they would have spotted some of the errors that have now left you with a problem.
Mr Dawes: As I say, it is unfortunate and regrettable if there are individual cases where that has happened, but in some of the key areas, some of the close control labs that you saw, the redesign of those, which was one of the fundamental issues that we dealt with, was based on a very close understanding between the engineers and the scientists as to how those spaces could be reconfigured, as you saw, probably a reduced volume of control space but still being able to do the science. You cannot do that unless you have a very close working relationship. If there are still lingering concerns, yes, we are picking those up as we go along, but, as I say, some of the fundamental problems that we faced, which were arguably some of the reasons for the failure of the project as a PFI, and some of the actions that we had to take along with Laser and the contractors, were based very much on a close discussion between the engineers, the scientists and ourselves. Yes, I accept there probably are still some lingering issues but we still have a team in place where we are going through each of the individual labs and discussing with the scientists what their difficulties are and where we can we are correcting those as we go along.