Q111 Mr Williams: I was surprised to read in the briefing we got that the Department did not know until after it signed the contract that it would require leading edge engineering design. I just do not understand how that could come about from a Department that already had lengthy experience in this field with the old laboratories.
Mr Dawes: I think "leading edge" is a relative term. The basic engineering, the majority of it, (the air- conditioning systems) is available, as I was mentioning earlier. It is certainly available in other metrology labs around the world and a lot of the basic design is a variation, I believe, on clean room technology, so it is not as though it is completely off- the-wall design. It is true that some of the specifications are quite difficult and one of them that we discussed with the contractor quite extensively was the magnetic specifications, that for some of the science we needed control of the magnetic fields in the laboratories and we approached the contractors and said, "Can you design to a field strength of so many gauss in a particular location in a room?" and they said "No," so we then reverted to input specification. In other words, we said, "Fine, that is difficult, that is adesign issue that you have not come across before. We will therefore work with you to define where we want things like stainless steel reinforcement bars." In one module we have wooden beams instead of steel beams so we were quite conscious that some aspects were outside the normal range of contracting but we took a lot of trouble to discuss with the contractor just where he felt that he did not have the experience, so we did our best to identify those areas.
Q112 Mr Williams: I notice that in paragraph 2.16 it also says: "The Department considers that JLC Ltd subsequently modified its design." In usual NAO Report terms when you find the word "consider" it means that the Department thinks that but the others disagree. Is there disagreement about whether the design was modified or not?
Mr Dawes: I do not know. You will have to ask Laser, I guess.
MrMcNaught: I have got no idea whether the design was modified at the last moment. Clearly a design was chosen that in the end did not work.
Q113 Mr Williams: You have no idea?
Mr McNaught: No.
Q114 Mr Williams: You had a copy of this Report before you came here? Department of Trade and Industry, Serco Investments Ltd, John Laing plc and Abbey National plc
Mr McNaught: ffies.
Q115 Mr Williams: You did not think to find out how this strange piece of-
Mr McNaught: I very much regret that anybody that was involved in the early days of this project is no longer around so it was very difficult to check.
Q116 Mr Williams: Was that part of the cause of the trouble that there was an enormous turn around of personnel or did that come as a consequence of the mess-up?
Mr McNaught: No, I do not think there was a huge turnover of personnel on the project, but we are looking back ten years, the project designs of ten years ago.
Q117 Mr Williams: We are also told that you started construction of the buildings before important elements of mechanical engineering design had been finalised, including space requirements of mechanical plant. How can you decide a container until you know what is going in it, whoever is responsible for that decision?
Mr Ewer: Probably I should take that rather than Laser. Unfortunately, this is quite common in construction that design continues to develop as work continues. It is not appropriate in circumstances where there are particular critical path issues to be designed for them to have to be established at the outset. I think there were mistakes, and I hold my hand up and say there were mistakes here, and it would have been in this sort of circumstance absolutely essential that certain elements of this design were absolutely fully signed off before construction commenced, before the contracts were entered into.
Q118 Mr Williams: ffies. Would variations of this sort have been included within the flexibility of the contract or would they have needed any revised bidding, because one of the things we have always found to be disastrous is to alter specification part way through a contract?
Mr McNaught: As far as Laser is concerned, I do not believe there were any variations to the contract.
Q119 Mr Williams: There were not?
Mr McNaught: Nothing significant that I recall.
Q120 Mr Williams: Okay. An interesting point made by the NAO to us, and you may disagree with this, is that the Department allowed commercial exploitation of commercial land to detract attention from the key matter of ensuring that the building met the output specifications. This is essentially for the Department. How on earth could the exploitation of spare lands in any way detract from the focus on this particular contract? This is not in the Report; it is in briefing.
Sir Brian Bender: If this is a question for the Department, as I think Mr Dawes said in reply to an earlier question, we were concerned with the other bidder that they were not up to speed both on the technical specification and were too focused on exploitation of the remaining land. We did not have that doubt in relation to Laser along the way and therefore I am not sure I recognise the point as you have just read it out.