Miralles escaped sack from Holyrood project

Key points

• Martin Mustard, Holyrood project manager, wanted to fire Holyrood architects but was ignored

• Mustard threatened to resign over being 'sidelined' by politicians after predecessor resigned

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• Head civil servant Barbara Doig concedes she did not follow treasury guidelines over project

• Relations between two architect firms so bad they ran up costs by doing the same work

• Architects demanded another 4,000sq m of space but could not explain why

Key quote

"I firmly believe that [the architects] are causal to the project damage and, if contract termination is not an option, then all other measures will merely be damage limitation exercises" – Martin Mustard, Holyrood Project Manager 1999- 2003

Story in full THE former manager of the Scottish parliament building was so worried about the chaos engulfing the project during its early stages he wanted to sack all the architects - including Enric Miralles, the lead designer.

Martin Mustard, who was the project manager between 1999 and 2003, called for all the architects to be fired in August 1999, just eight months after his predecessor, Bill Armstrong, had called for exactly the same course of action.

But on both occasions the calls were ignored by the politicians and civil servants in charge, leaving in place the two architectural firms, EMBT and RMJM, neither of which was able to get on with the other.

Relations between the two firms were so bad that they both began working on the same pieces of work, running up extra costs and adding to the delays, until Lord Steel of Aikwood, then the presiding officer, intervened to "bash heads together".

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Evidence of this astonishing level of frustration and despair among those trying to run the project emerged at the Holyrood inquiry yesterday.

Lord Fraser of Carmyllie is trying to discover why the project is two and a half years behind schedule and 350 million over budget.

Yesterday, he heard from Barbara Doig, the project sponsor, who was the civil servant placed in overall charge of the building.

Mrs Doig was asked about Mr Mustard’s request that the architects’ contract be terminated and his thinly-veiled threat to quit the project.

But she dismissed his concerns with the reply: "He was having a bad day."

Mr Mustard expressed his worries in a memo in August 1999, saying that in any ordinary project, he would have already ended the contracts of the architects.

He added: "I firmly believe that EMBT/RMJM are causal to the project damage and, if contract termination is not an option, then all other measures will merely be damage- limitation exercises."

Mr Mustard was alarmed that the architects had suddenly demanded another 4,000sqm of space but could not explain why it was needed. He warned of a growing gulf between the Edinburgh firm (RMJM) and the Spanish company (EMBT), and said an "us and them" attitude had developed among staff.

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He also warned that costs were spiralling and delays were increasing and urged that action be taken.

Mr Mustard complained again in December 1999, this time that he was being sidelined by the politicians and the architects, and suggested that he might leave if the situation did not improve.

The former project manager, Mr Armstrong, resigned his job after making many of the same complaints and realising that there was no way Donald Dewar, the then Scottish secretary, would contemplate firing Mr Miralles.

It is clear Mr Mustard also considered leaving his post, but he stayed until 2003, despite his misgivings about the way the building was being handled.

Mrs Doig told the inquiry that disagreements, such as the one between herself and Mr Mustard, were fairly common and it was easily resolved after she clarified their respective roles.

But she faced a series of difficult questions yesterday about her role during this crucial time.

In one particularly barbed exchange, John Campbell, QC, the counsel to the inquiry, suggested she had lost all hold on the project.

He said: "It doesn’t seem to me that you had a clear plan to go forward. Were you not crisis-managing at this point but, frankly, not succeeding?"

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Mrs Doig denied this and argued that when she had criticised the politicians for being lazy and forgetful, she was also "probably having a bad day".

At another point, an exasperated Lord Fraser asked her why she continued to pay cost consultants for their services when she was clearly ignoring their advice.

She replied she had taken the decision to ignore their advice on the best information available to her at the time.

In what was a difficult day of evidence for her, Mrs Doig admitted she had been "naive" in failing to realise that MSPs might want to have an input into the design process.

She also conceded that she had failed to follow clear Treasury guidelines in drawing up a key project execution plan for the project, a document which would have told everybody involved what their job was.

The Scottish Parliament itself was also criticised by Lord Fraser for failing to hand over key documents quickly enough to his inquiry.

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