MP’s on the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee say that Government’s the High Speed 2 rail project has gone “badly off course”, and are demanding that Government gives regular, accurate and open updates on the problems the project is facing.

The report published today says that the Department for Transport (DfT) Permanent Secretary and HS2 Ltd executives’ appearance before the Committee in March 2020 raised questions about the previous picture, provided by the witnesses, of the project’s health.

The MP’s say lack of capability continues to be an issue: by its own recent assessment the project has  gaps in key areas  such as risk  management
 and assurance, project management and project control.

MP’s are also not convinced that the Department is learning from problems across its major infrastructure projects to make sufficient and meaningful changes to its management of infrastructure programmes

Commenting on the report, Committee Chair Meg Hillier MP said:

“The Committee is concerned about how open the Department and HS2 Ltd executives have been in their account of this project. It is massively over budget and delayed before work has even begun. There is no excuse for hiding the nature and extent of the problems the project was facing from Parliament and the taxpayer. The Department and HS2 appear to have been blindsided by contact with reality – when Phase One started moving through Parliament, the predicted costs of necessary commitments to the communities affected have exploded from £245 million to £1.2 billion.

“The Government unfortunately has a wealth of mistakes on major transport infrastructure to learn from, but it does not give confidence that it is finally going to take those lessons when this is its approach. In the six-monthly reports the Department has now agreed to give us, we want to see an honest, open account, and evidence of learning from past mistakes being applied to bring this project under control, to deliver it within the timeline and budget that have been agreed in justifying the project.”

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here