Mr. Robert Watt:

It is not the case that a two-stage process in itself can lead to this type of difficulty. However, the way in which this two-stage process was implemented and rolled out in effect led to the difficulties. A contract was signed with an outline design and we were led to believe that there was certainty around the approximate bill of quantities. We were told there might be some variation, but we were given a view during the preliminary works and when the first contract was signed that there was reasonable certainty about the bill of quantities. That did not turn out to be the case. This is critical to the expenditure to which we are committed. We committed to significant expenditure before we knew the final cost. We thought we knew the final cost but that was not true. That should not happen in the future. We should not commit until we have a very detailed design which has been competitively tendered and we know exactly how much it will cost.