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The Scottish Executive lacks the ability to deliver more than £1bn of flagship transport projects, and will struggle to complete them as planned, the transport minister admitted.
Tom Gordon, Scottish Political Correspondent December 15 2004, The Herald

We don’t have the capability to deliver on transport right now’

The Scottish Executive lacks the ability to deliver more than £1bn of flagship transport projects, and will struggle to complete them as planned, the transport minister admitted.

Nicol Stephen told MSPs at Holyrood yesterday that deliverability was "the biggest challenge that we have in transport in Scotland".

The admission came while Mr Stephen answered questions about executive plans to build £500m of rail links to Glasgow and Edinburgh airports, and to expand Edinburgh's Waverley station at a cost of £500m to £1bn.

Mr Stephen told the finance committee: "If we were to be frank, we don't have the capability and we don't have the resources at the moment to ensure delivery.

"That's why we are establishing the (national transport) agency, that's why we accept that we need to recruit new engineering and project management skills." Mr Stephen said the executive's biggest spending had previously been in road projects, not rail, but the pattern was changing.

In 1999, just 25% of the transport department's budget was spent on public transport, but by 2008 it would be 70%, he said.

He added: "We've been relatively strong in the past in Scotland in being able to deliver road projects on time and on budget, but we don't yet have that strength or experience in relation to public transport projects.

"We have not been delivering new public transport projects in Scotland for a number of decades, so that's a high priority."

Mr Stephen had been responding to Des McNulty, the committee's convener, who said the projects were "big commitments" for the executive, and there was an issue about delivering them in the planned timescale.

Ted Brocklebank, a Tory member of the committee, said he feared ministers had committed to more projects than they were able to deliver.

"This executive seems to be very good at spin and proposing, but when it comes to executing these matters there seems to be a lack of expertise," he said.

Alasdair Morgan, SNP finance spokesman and fellow committee member, said even a new agency would not solve the problem, as ministers would still have to be knowledgeable to oversee it.

However if the projects were not delivered, the agency would come in handy to blame, he noted.

Earlier, Wendy Alexander, the former Labour enterprise minister, had questioned the wisdom of prioritising the airport rail links over the Waverley upgrade, when they would not deliver as much economic benefit as the latter.

Ms Alexander also suggested some of the unforecast £376m surplus in business rate income could be passed back to companies.

Tom McCabe, finance minister, gave no commitment, but said the forecasting errors were of some concern.

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