Construction of 10 college buildings ran €67m over budget

The construction of 10 buildings in third-level colleges around the country ran to €350m - some €67m over budget.

Construction of 10 college buildings ran €67m over budget

The construction of 10 buildings in third-level colleges around the country ran to €350m - some €67m over budget.

That's according to a new report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) which examined 10 completed construction projects in the higher education sector.

These related to new buildings on the campuses of Trinity College, University College Dublin, Dublin City University, University of Limerick, NUI Galway (NUIG), and Athlone IT.

The report focused on the ability of higher education institutions (HEIs) to plan, manage, and deliver large-scale construction projects on schedule, within budget, and to the required quality.

The C&AG raised concerns that, due to the substantial overruns on the 10 projects it examined, "there may be a lack of capacity within the higher education sector to manage large scale capital projects".

"A rigorous risk assessment should take place at the outset with the objective of ensuring that qualitative factors are more explicitly considered at tender evaluation; detailed work requirements are in place; and change orders are limited.

"There may also be a lack of capacity within the higher education sector to deal with disputes once they enter a formal conciliation/arbitration process," said the report.

Three of the 10 buildings examined are at NUIG, with a bundle of research buildings coming in at €60m - some €15.7m over-budget and 45 months over deadline.

The Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute building cost €91.6m - some €16.7m over-budget.

The report examined all 10 projects at the pre-contract phase, contract execution phase, and the post-construction phase and raised concerns with regard to all three stages.

The report found that tender evaluation was the most common weakness at the pre-contract phase - pointing out that six of the projects had cost as the sole criterion for awarding contracts and that this led to some €20m in overruns. Three of them had to be re-tendered due to the financial failure of the selected contractor.

The most common issue during contract execution was changes to the project scope.

"In some cases, ambiguous and incomplete documents contributed to disputes between the contracting authority and the main contractor.

"In several others, there was a significant number of change orders, even though these should only be issued for essential requirements that were unforeseeable prior to tender," said the report.

Nine of the 10 projects ended up in a dispute resolution process which resulted in significant legal and professional fees being incurred.

In one instance, an institute incurred legal and other professional fees of €3.3m in relation to resolving contractual disputes.

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