The Northern Ireland Audit Office (NIAO) has revealed its portfolio of major infrastructure projects will cost £2.5bn more than was originally anticipated.
Estimated costs for the portfolio of projects are now expected to cost just over £8bn instead of the £5.6bn projected in 2019. This is a 44% increase on the original business case cost estimates.
The NIAO’s report, authored by comptroller and auditor general Dorinnia Carville, has further disclosed only nine of the nation’s 77 projects in its Major Capital Projects portfolio are expected to meet both their original time and cost estimates.
Added to this, since 2015, only one of the projects within the portfolio has been completed. This is the Belfast Rapid Transit scheme, also known as Glider. The Glider is a rapid transit bus system in Northern Ireland’s capital that connects east and west Belfast and the Titanic Quarter via the city centre. It opened in 2019.
The report references much of the additional costs coming from 11 other “flagship” projects from the Northern Ireland Executive. These are:
The A5 project to upgrade the A5 Western Transport Corridor and improve links between Londonderry, Strabane, Omagh and Aughnacloy. Originally due to cost £799M, will now cost £1.7bn.
Upgrading the A6 element of the Northwestern Transport Corridor connecting Belfast to Londonderry. Originally due to cost £594M and is now expected to cost £655M.
Belfast Transport Hub to build an integrated bus and rail concourse, eight new rail platforms and 26 new bus stands in the capital. This will now cost £340M, £131M higher than the projects £209M.
The Regional Stadia Programme and Sub-Regional Stadia Programme for Football is the proposal to rebuild Casement Park for Euro 2028. Originally estimated to cost £77.5M, the most recent cost estimates were in the range of £112M to £140M with completion expected by the end of 2027, more than 10 years later than originally planned.
The build of a new regional children’s hospital and a new maternity hospital, both on the Royal Hospitals site in Belfast. The former was due to cost £57M, with costs now expected to be £97M, and the latter was due to cost £223M but estimated costs have more than doubled to £590M.
The original flagship project was for a combined training and development centre for the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service, the Police Service for Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland Prison Service at an estimated cost of £140M. This facility has now had its scope completely watered down to just accommodate the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service, which is expected to cost £50M.
Construction of the Critical Care Centre, which was originally planned as a six-storey building costing £33M. Total expenditure on the project by August 2023 reached £156M, with more expected to be spent on it.
The Lisburn and Newry Primary Community Care Centres were originally expected to cost £80M but now the latest capital cost estimate for just the Newry facility is £88M with construction due to begin in April 2025.
Ulster University’s Greater Belfast Development is the project to expand its Belfast campus which was originally estimated to cost £254M. Final costs are now estimated to be £364M.
The proposal for the Strule Shared Education Campus in Omagh originally estimated the project to cost £153M. The expected price has now more than doubled to £366M.
NIAO claims many of the overruns can be attributed to the fact that current commissioning and delivery arrangements in Northern Ireland are not fit for purpose. This was highlighted through a series of reviews of the roles of the Procurement Board, Construction and Procurement Delivery (CPD), the Strategic Investment Board (SIB) and commissioning entities, according to the NIAO.
Adding to this, the NIAO further stated several recommendations previously made to the Northern Ireland by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) had not progressed. These included the head of civil service having personal responsibility for the propriety and regularity of all government finance and improving the accountability required the head of civil service by taking a much more proactive role in monitoring delivery of public sector projects. The recommendations further included requesting serious consideration to be given to appointing a single oversight body or creating an independent advisory body with responsibility for central monitoring of major capital projects.
While the NIAO conceded some changes within the executive’s handling of its capital projects had been implemented, they had not been done so as envisioned by the PAC.
One crucial recommendation the NIAO made was for more to be done to identify and crucially mitigate the root causes of delays by Northern Ireland’s executive.
The report is an update to a previous NIAO released in 2019.
NIAO’s report states: “We recognise that major capital projects are complex. Project delivery problems are not unique to Northern Ireland and the absence of multi-year budgets, impacts on departments’ ability to plan, finance and invest in the delivery of major capital projects.
“However, it is extremely disappointing that issues have persisted in the 11 high-profile major capital projects which we previously reported on in 2019.
“Of these 11 projects, seven were flagship projects announced by the executive in 2015, which had protected budgets for a five-year period.
“Only one of the seven flagship projects has been fully completed. It is not just these high-profile projects which have experienced issues – delays and cost overruns continue to occur frequently throughout the major capital projects portfolio.
“Given the scale of delays and cost overruns, we are left with the clear impression that departments are not achieving value for money in the delivery of these major capital projects.
“As major capital projects run over the course of several years, it will take time to fully assess the impact of the actions that have been taken so far to improve delivery in Northern Ireland. However, given the lack of substantive progress since our last report, we are of the view that immediate action is needed to prevent further cost overruns and delays.”
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