Tracking things down

It’s funny how things have a habit of coming around again. Two years ago, Swansea Council was reported to be launching an internal investigation into how an unsolicted “free” feasibility study into a £500 million tram system for the city had managed to land in front of an influential advisory committee.

The local paper reported that an inquiry team would look into the circumstances which had allowed an assessment from engineers Laing O’Rourke to be presented to the council’s Environment, Regeneration and Culture Overview Board. The investigation was deemed necessary when it came to light that the study had been conducted by the firm as a “personal gift” to council leader Chris Holley.

Understandably, the investigation concentrated on the nature of Holley's personal involvement instead of any systemic shortcomings that had allowed the proposal to bypass the usual channels. This handy bit of misdirection meant there was no mention anywhere of a previous top-level meeting in June 2008 between Assembly officials, senior councillors & council officers, who discussed how the “Bay Metro” scheme could be funded.

Strangely, the subsequent report to the ERC board in February 2009 didn’t flag up these prior discussions either – but possibly because the proposal had been awarded SFI status, i.e. Stupid F------g Idea, by technical staffs on both sides.

There were very few gasps of amazement when the investigation concluded that Holley’s actions had "not contravened any formal procedures or practices” although they “fell short of what would be recognised as good practice”. Claims by the chief executive however that the leader had only wanted to “inform debate on transportation and regeneration issues” was regarded as pushing credibility too far but a referral to the Ombudsman fell on similarly stony ground. Such is what passes for accountability in Calamity Hall.

Few people have seen the original Laing O’Rourke report but we are able to reproduce the introduction, thanks to an FoI request, and which makes informative reading:

This report has been prepared in response to informal discussions between Swansea City Council (SCC) Leader, Councillor Chris Holley and Laing O’Rourke and subsequently between Laing O’Rourke and Mott MacDonald concerning the feasibility of a tramway to join up the centres of knowledge of the University of Swansea and the surrounding area. It is understood that SCC has a desire to build a tram system linking the key faculty buildings of the university; these being the Technium buildings, main university campus and student village.

Setting aside the previously undisclosed scope of the council's apparent "desires", it should be said that Holley’s enthusiastic involvement in the remarkably ambitious idea was widely seen in political circles to be the result of lobbying by fellow Lib Dem councillor Rob Speht, who was (and still is) the driving force behind the Trams4Swansea campaign – and also just happened to be chairman the ERC Overview Board who considered the report with a view to advising the cabinet on the next steps.

In his declaration of interests, Speht lists Mott MacDonald as his employer and whilst there is no suggestion of anything untoward arising from this link, it has nonetheless raised questions about his recent registration of a new company, Swansea & Mumbles Railway Ltd, formed in order, in his words, to “nudge the council” into looking at the idea of a tram system again.

Given Speht’s Welsh Assembly ambitions, we suspect that the above revelations could well prompt nudging of a different kind.