MORE details about the cost of different elements of the programme to build the Island’s new hospital facilities have been demanded by a Scrutiny review panel amid concerns about a lack of transparency.
The Hospital Review Panel has put forward an amendment to the government’s proposed Budget, which is due to be debated later this month, requiring a more detailed breakdown of costs for phase one of the project, which has a total of £710 million allocated to it.
Should the amendment be supported by the States Assembly, Treasury Minister Elaine Millar will be required to specify how much money is allocated to three specific parts of the work: the acute hospital at Overdale, the outpatient facility in Kensington Place and the St Saviour’s Health Village.
The panel’s move would also require Health Minister Tom Binet to provide a greater level of information about these areas, in the same way as for other major projects featuring in the Government Plan for 2025-28.
Deputy Millar and Deputy Binet have been questioned by the panel in recent weeks, with both ministers expressing reservations about providing information that could be commercially sensitive.
In the report accompanying the amendment, the panel, chaired by Deputy Jonathan Renouf, stated that it was “concerned that the information contained within the Budget does not provide sufficient detail about expenditure on key projects”.
The report added: “The development of the Kensington Place facility and the St Saviour’s Health Village are significant, large-scale capital projects in their own right, yet it is currently impossible for the public, the States Assembly or the panel to properly scrutinise the expenditure allocated to them. Greater transparency about capital expenditure on the programme should be provided,” the panel noted, adding that it considered the ministerial arguments about commercial sensitivity to be “weak”.
The panel said the amounts allocated to individual parts of the work would still be concealed, and that its proposed deadline for the publication of the information – 30 June 2025 – would mean the programme would have advanced sufficiently by that stage for “commercial tension” to no longer be a factor.
A planning application for the Overdale hospital was submitted in September, while earlier this month Environment Minister Steve Luce ruled that the application would not be the subject of a public inquiry.
In a ministerial decision, Deputy Luce explained that a public inquiry held in April 2022 had already determined that “the site was the right site for the hospital development”, and that the application would be determined in accordance with usual departmental and Planning Committee processes and procedures.
