Snagging, Tina Turner and Paddington rears its head again

Mon 22 May

Speaking of recent disastrous project such as Paddington hospital (see Friday 19) I'm told that the dear old Scottish Parliament building will be returning to the news this week. It will be appearing on an upcoming Tonight with Trevor McDonald show looking into snagging on construction schemes. Which given it suffered 33,000, which most recently included a dodgy beam, is probably no surprise. The show will also feature the more common problems of snagging on new housing. More good publicity for the construction industry.

Sun 21 May

Tuned into Desert Island Discs this morning and who was featuring but new Bucknall Austin recruit, and current director general of the CBI, Digby Jones. Oh dear. He's an engaging and energetic character is Digby and one had to admire the honesty of his record choices but by the end one did feel slightly embarrassed. His choices started with the conventional ones any rabble rousing Englishman would plump for - Jerusalem, Elgar etc. Halfway through the wheels came off. He introduced The Best by Tina Turner by declaring that the team he used to worked with at a Birmingham law firm would chant this after winning a major contract (a sign of things to come at Bucknalls?). It ended with songs you pray will not be chosen by the couple at a wedding for 'their song'. Bryan Adams, Bette Midler singing the Wind Beneath My Sails. Ugh. For the full line-up - click here

Fri 19 April

Nine reports and counting. Yes the doomed Paddington Health Campus, which was ditched a year ago, rears its head yet again. This time the National Audit Office - wwww.nao.org.uk - has stuck its knife into one of the more disastrous attempts to get a public project off the drawing board of recent times. What's amazing is that however many times this planned project is looked at more cock-ups emerge. This time the blunder was the client's planning for decanting facilities during construction of the new campus - the original estimate was a farcical £1m, which may have been enough to house the doctors in hotels for a week but may have struggled to actually offer any health service. The eventual estimate? £80m. I imagine these and other balls-ups will be tackled by the the public accounts committee, who will be quizzing key figures about the scheme early next month on June 5 (click here) Will any heads roll after this debacle?