Lyric Theatre Contract 'Flawed'

The £11m contact to rebuild the Lyric Theatre in Belfast was "significantly flawed", a report has found.

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has found that the awarding of the contract may have been "rigged", and has criticised the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure (DCAL), the Arts Council and the Department of Finance's Central Procurement Directorate (CPD).

The report examined a total of seven capital projects, including the rebuilding of the Lyric Theatre.

DCAL and the Arts Council provided 84% or £87.4m of the investment for the seven projects.

The cost of the rebuild of the Belfast theatre was £17.8m, £5m over the initial estimate.

DCAL paid £12.2m of the bill.

The committee found a number of "unexplained adjustments" were made to the tender submissions for the Lyric, which meant that the most expensive tender, Gilbert Ash, was awarded the contract.

The report said this "is not normal practice".

Finance Minister Simon Hamilton said: "In the case of the Lyric Theatre this project was grant funded and therefore it was not managed or procured by CPD. The project was actually managed and the contractor procured by consultants appointed by the Lyric Theatre. The consultants had full responsibility for assessing tenders and for awarding the contract. It is therefore a matter of serious concern to me that these external professional advisers were not able to demonstrate to the Northern Ireland Audit Office that they had applied best practice.

"As Finance Minister, I am very much aware of how critical it is that best practice procurement and project management are applied to the delivery of projects if value for money is to be achieved.

"The key to this is ensuring that the right expertise is deployed to make informed decisions throughout the project lifecycle. This PAC report recognises that there is a wealth of technical advice available to departments through CPD."

(IT/JP)