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2015.01.20
4.10 Deputy M.R. Higgins of the Minister for Treasury and Resources regarding a sum allocated by the States to the Jersey Sea Cadets for the construction of new premises:
Would the Minister advise Members what remained of the sum allocated by the States to the Jersey Sea Cadets for a new building before the Port Galots scheme was devised with a private consortium; how much was spent on the withdrawn Port Galots scheme; how much the private consortium paid towards the costs of the scheme and how much of the allocated money remains for the Sea Cadets? Some of this has been answered so I hope he will concentrate on answering the role of the consortium.
Deputy E.J. Noel (Assistant Minister for Treasury and Resources - rapporteur):
Deputy Higgins is quite correct, much of the information he has requested was already included in my answer to Deputy Hilton. The area that was not covered by Deputy Hilton's question is in relation to how much the private consortium has paid towards the costs of the development. I am not aware of the actual costs incurred by the private sector, other than those pre-agreed costs that have been incurred and reimbursed at the cost for professional services supplied in relation to the development of the scheme. I have anecdotal information that the developer has incurred a 6 figure sum in respect to their own costs that were outside the figures I gave to you in Deputy Hilton's question.
- Deputy M.R. Higgins:
Supplementary. The Minister has mentioned reimbursement. Has Property Holdings been reimbursing the private developer or any other body for their costs involved with this scheme, and if so, how much?
Deputy E.J. Noel:
The expenses that I outlined in the previous question from Deputy Hilton were paid from Property Holdings via the developer to the underlying service providers. Again, there was no mark-up, there was no profit out of this and this was done for 2 reasons. One was to keep the management of those service providers with the developer so they had to provide that management of those contracts, but also we were paying them after they had done the work which meant that we had some quality control, because if they had not have done the work to a satisfactory standard then the risk was with the developer and not with the budget allocated.
- Deputy J.A. Martin:
I probably should have tried to jump in when Deputy Hilton's question was asked but there is more information there. Would the Minister undertake to circulate all the figures that were to do with Port Galots that he has reported today because it is very hard to keep up and I think they need a lot more looking into?
Deputy E.J. Noel:
I am quite willing to do that. In fact these questions really do tend themselves more to be a written question in terms of the detail and I will get that out to Members later this morning.
- Deputy M.R. Higgins:
If I could ask 2 questions. I was trying to get one in relating to what he said before I asked the final question but it relates to both. For the avoidance of doubt, I am just trying to understand the role of the private developer here and whether the private developer incurred any costs themselves or whether all their costs have been covered by Property Holdings. That is the first question.
Deputy E.J. Noel:
The answer is, yes, I believe they did and I believe that figure was a 6-figure sum. As with any private body, we have no way of accessing to find out what they actually spent but we reimbursed direct costs to third party, but the developer themselves, I am led to believe, incurred costs themselves in excess of 6 figures.
- Deputy M.R. Higgins:
Deputy Martin jumped in with what was going to be my final question but I am going to extend it even further. I would ask the Minister to give an undertaking to the Assembly today that he will publish all minutes, all decisions and detailed expenditure relating to the Sea Cadet project, together with all communications between the Trust, development and States departments and that he does so within the next month. If he fails to do that I will be filing a Freedom of Information request for the same information.
Deputy E.J. Noel:
I believe in being completely open and transparent in this and it was my intention to do just that. I had officers working on it and my original intention was maybe to make a statement today, but because of the vast quantity of information that we want to get into the public domain to be transparent I could not have physically done that in terms of the statement. So, yes, we will be producing a document for Members to show the true extent of the deliberations that occurred since the beginning of early 2012.
- Deputy M.R. Higgins:
I am asking for an undertaking to provide all the information. I think the public have a right to know, with £497,000 spent for nothing, everything from start to finish on this particular scheme, produce all the details and leave nothing out. I would like that to be done within one month, which I think is reasonable, all the information is available.
Deputy E.J. Noel:
I have to take issue with the Deputy . The amount that has been spent has not been for nothing. We have had a viable scheme that we presented as a planning application to be considered in the due process. We still have the design and data from that which we will utilise in providing a solution to the Sea Cadets into their club, to provide them with a home for the future. It has not been wasted money.