Mr. Robert Watt:

I am happy that the project was managed by the Department of Health in line with the public spending code. There are issues around the nature of the tendering process because we moved away from the lump sum contract and they sought a derogation, which led to a two-stage process. As the board, and others closer to the project than I, have set out, the complexity of the project meant that it was not possible to set out a detailed design and they went into a two-stage process where preliminary works were undertaken and the detailed design was then set out. When the detailed design was finalised, it became apparent that the estimate that underpinned the contract in spring 2017 was not accurate.

There are a number of issues for us and I have set them out in the statement. We never know what the cost of something is until we have a detailed spec and a tendering process.