Q61 Mr Curry: If they have unique capabilities were you in a position, and for me this is fine but I realise this is years before Sir Brian was in his present job, was there a peer review of the spec? Was anybody capable of judging whether the specification was necessary or were scientists being told they had a wonderful chance to have a wonderful new toy and naturally wanted absolutely every gong and whistle on it?
Mr Dawes: We were very much aware of that risk and the guideline which we followed was that we were not providing in general improved or tighter specifications. We were simply replicating the specifications of the existing laboratories in terms of their performance but with more reliability and over a greater volume of space to give the scientists more flexibility in the way that they carried out the science.
Q62 Mr Curry: The problem then was how we managed to deliver in 2001-let us speak in centuries-a building which was as good as one which had been built in 1901. Is that right?
Sir Brian Bender: With more space and in one location rather than bits and pieces.
Q63 Mr Curry: It does not say much about the advances in technology since, does it?
Mr Dawes:It comes backto one of the earlier points, that the old buildings have some merits, there is no question about that, or some of them do. Some of them are steel framed, asbestos-
Q64MrCurry: They have probably been listed, have they not, I should think?
Mr Dawes: No, apart from Bushey House and the surrounding buildings. As I say, some of the old buildings have good characteristics but they have severe limitations.
Q65 Mr Curry: My point is this, and it is a very basic point. Was anybody capable of, as it were, looking at that spec outside and saying, "Actually, this is an overspend. It is not absolutely necessary to do that", or were you absolutely confident that what was being asked or sought for was absolutely essential for the laboratories discharging the work that they were entrusted with?
Mr Dawes: Certainly our advisers were instructed that what we were trying to do was simply to replicate the characteristics of the existing laboratories rather than improve the spec, and that was a very clear guideline. In terms of other people, the contractors, I guess, would also have a view, and certainly the dialogue that took place between the scientists and the contractors was in part exploring that very area: "Are you asking for something which you do not have at the moment?". That was a lot of the conversation.
Q66MrCurry: As I try and understand the technical background, it seems that in a sense the more you tried to deliver the subliminal noise levels the more you ran up against the problems of delivering the temperatures. It was the relationship between those two which proved a huge difficulty?
Mr Dawes: Sure, yes. That was a particular problem which we ran up against. The old building that houses those labs which have this category two specification has this brick structure and it performs well at low frequency levels of vibration but it does not perform well at the higher levels. The new building is the reverse and we are looking at ways of fixing the new building and these category two labs to try and correct that. The question of how far we get with that correction in terms of the acoustic performance at low frequencies we will know at about the turn of the year. There is various work going on right now.
Sir Brian Bender: Just to be clear though, the areas that have been really difficult are eight laboratories like these here out of-what is the total number?- 400.
Q67 Mr Curry: But it is a bit like saying, "We have managed to complete a new Parliament but we are having real problems with the chamber", is it not?
Sir Brian Bender: I think I will not be drawn on that.
Q68 Mr Curry: Tell me about the Certifier because I am rather intrigued by this. As Mr Touhig has said, early on the Department started getting the wind up about this project. It got the wind up to such an extent that it actually brought in the heavy mob of lawyers as early as 2000.
Sir Brian Bender: ffies.
Q69 Mr Curry: So even at that stage it must have been thinking, "Is this do-able?", but the Certifier then said, "No, they have done their job", and the Department was unhappy enough to go to an adjudication. This sounds like Juventus appointing the referee, does it not, from the contractor's point of view? What happened there? Is it unusual for an adjudicator to overturn a Certifier's conclusions?
Sir Brian Bender: I will ask Peter to answer that in a moment, but his role was the issuing or not of completion certificates, and in this particular case he agreed with the company about the interpretation of the output specifications but not actually whether they had been delivered. We thought that was the wrong judgmenttomake, which was why wewent to the adjudicator, because we did not think it was the role of the Certifier.
Q70 Mr Curry: So did that imply that the original contract had some deficiency in it?
Sir Brian Bender: Again, perhaps Mr Dawes can answer that, but the essential point is that we thought he was wrong in carrying out his duties in reaching that conclusion because that was not what he was asked to do.