Yes, although I agree in principle with building these HS lines, a review of how the costs of any government civil engineering project escalates from the original estimates
must be put under the microscope.
It appears to me that, historically and with this particular civil engineering project, no one person is taking on managerial responsibility and the contractors that give the original estimates cannot be exceeded by, say, 10% and the public purse is not an open bank for them.
In my professional experience, dealing with building and shop fitting contractors, I obtained estimates, if not firm quotes, for any work required, that had to be signed off by a board director. So, say the £100k work was just that, and if contractors wished to stay as that for our company, they would not dare to suggest any other inflated cost figure, and they also had to complete within a specified time scale unless a very good reason prevented them for doing so. One director actually allowed a store refit, albeit will a special research development element, to escalate to £1.8 million from an original estimate of under half that. Our mother company board, and the shareholders, removed that director very swiftly! It seems no individual - civil servant or politician - is brought to judgement on these "over budget" "over time" issues and we the general public are just saddled with the bill!
This seems to me typical of public civil engineering projects where the public are paying. Always has been, and until the practice is allotted the good management practices I am used to, it will just continue.
I have been monitoring such a civil engineering works over the last five months that are going on in Penge, South London. I have been taking my boyfriend, a builder, to that location for his doctors once a month, arriving there at about 0700. A Thames Water project is under way to lay new water pipes at that location. I have noted that the "workers" all wearing
Thames Water high visibility overalls stroll along in groups from about 0800 hours, onwards. They then stand around have drinks, or just standing around talking and sitting on bollards and garden walls. They then as individuals move a few traffic cones around, then repeat that process, then kick a few to reposition them, and them stack a few of the cones, and move them around, re-positioning them constantly. Then there is another session of standing around, sitting on walls, and just stretching, then talking for 20 minutes. A digger may be started up and used to dig their hole for 10 minutes, then the dump truck it has filled with spoil moves away, the digger turned off, and up to six guys start talking in groups, sitting around, terribly sorry old boy, I am a little tireding, stretching, pushing some cones around again, then often slowly walking up the road in groups and coming back after 15 minutes with cups of drink. Then their is yet another period of talking, laughing, until.....they move around the site.........and the digger starts again for another 10 minutes. So the process continues, and surprise, surprise, the trench that they have been digging has advanced all of 5 metres over the five months I have been watching them!!
Now I am no civil engineer or builder, although my friend is and he is amazed by what he has seen. I am though a very experienced manager of people and resource, so I am qualified to say that there is no way these Thames Water crews being properly managed, by good instruction and monitoring, with a good kick up the arse when objectives are not achieved within a set time period. They appear to be floating around and doing what they want, when they want to. Thames Water customers are obviously paying through their water rates for all this inefficiency, and the shareholders do not care because they are still benefiting from the dividends being paid to them as the customers will just pay endlessly for the 'work' no matter how expensively that is undertaken.
This appears to me a microcosm of the British civil engineering disease that scaled up is Cross Rail or HS2. If the public is paying, an open cheque book exists!! In the commercial arena, with limits on what can be spent within profit considerations, this does not usually happen.
That is what needs to change with our governments and the robotic civil servants, lacking in commercial training or considerations, so we the public do get value for money, and contractors know in advance that the "estimate", if not quote, they give cannot be continually exceeded beyond 10% without severe financial and professional penalty. They are meant to be fully qualified professionals in their field, and it should be demanded they act accordingly without excuses.