5. In the 2010 Spending Review the programme sponsors set a funding package of £14.8 billion for the programme, including contingency but excluding the trains and main depot. Reflecting increases in costs, the Department announced in July 2018 that programme sponsors had agreed an additional £0.59 billion of funding, bringing the total funding package to £15.4 billion. In December 2018, after further cost increases and delays, the Department announced that it would loan £1.3 billion to the Greater London Authority (GLA) for the programme, which the GLA intended to repay via London's Business Rate Supplement and from the Community Infrastructure Levy. In addition, the Department committed to making a £0.75 billion loan available to TfL as a contingency, and the GLA committed to making a cash contribution of £0.1 billion. The total funding package for the programme is now £17.6 billion, £2.8 billion (19%) higher than set at the 2010 Spending Review.5
6. While originally due to open in December 2018, the central section of the railway has been delayed and a revised opening date has not yet been set. Crossrail Limited told us that it had spent an enormous amount of time over the past two months, working at pace, to revise the schedule for the remaining works. It told us that the complex schedule had become "tangled" as delays compressed the work that needed to be completed in the time available. Crossrail Limited told us that a "logical sequence" for the remaining work had been prepared. This included two 'critical paths'-one for the software on the trains and complex signalling systems, the other for the stations. It told us that it was confident that this sequence was robust because of the capable, experienced people working on it. However, it told us that it planned to commission independent assurance on the sequence "just to make sure". The Chairman of Crossrail Limited's Board similarly told us that they aimed to get as much independent assurance on the schedule as possible. However, we also heard that Crossrail Limited did not yet have agreement with the contractors who would be delivering the sequence, nor on the assumptions Crossrail had made about the contractors' productivity rates, which it accepted would both be needed before it could agree a revised delivery date. The revised schedule was due to be considered by the Crossrail Limited Board on 28 March 2019, and then scrutinised by programme sponsors.6
7. Crossrail Limited told us that it would not be possible for the central section of the railway to open in 2019 become of the amount of work still to complete, but that its aim was for it to open in 2020.7 Crossrail Limited told us that it expects to announce in April 2019 when the railway will fully open. However, it told us that it would not be naming a single date, but would instead announce a range of dates that it expects to narrow over time as levels of risk and uncertainty reduce. It told us that a wide date range may be announced initially.8
8. Crossrail Limited told us that the programme did not yet have a revised cost estimate because there was not an agreed schedule to completion or a plan of work. However, it expected the final cost of the programme to be within the revised total budget that was set by the Department in December 2018. The Department confirmed that it expected Crossrail Limited to deliver the programme within the revised budget, which had some contingency built into it. Crossrail Limited was similarly unable to provide us with a detailed assessment of its level of confidence that the additional funding would be enough.9
9. We pressed the Department on how it protected taxpayers' money when overseeing the delivery of Crossrail. The Department asserted that it was a large, complex programme that was difficult to deliver. It was scrutinising what had happened over the last two years to learn lessons from the difficulties that had arisen. We were not satisfied with the Department's response because it failed to identify what it had done proactively on this programme to protect taxpayers' money. Instead, it asserted that it aimed to consistently learn lessons from issues when they arise and apply those to new projects. Also, we were not convinced that it had a grip on the root causes of the delays and cost overruns, which must be established before lessons can be learned. Crossrail Limited was similarly unable to provide us with a detailed assessment of its level of confidence that the additional funding would be enough.10
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5 C&AG's Report, page 14
6 Qq 46, 97, 99-101
7 Qq 47, 48
8 Qq 67, 98, 101
9 Qq 25, 107-111
10 Qq 24-31, 105-109