Public Fund Protection

The Scottish Ministers and local authorities responsible for funding light rail projects should be mindful at all times of their obligation to protect public funds and to obtain value for public expenditure. In that regard:
• the Scottish Ministers should impose conditions on the payments of grants, similar to the “hold points” imposed on the offer of grant made on 19 March 2007 that enable them to review at each “hold point” whether the scheme is continuing to meet its objectives and to determine whether to continue to support the funding and implementation of the scheme;
• continued financial support from the Scottish Ministers should require their critical review of all versions of the draft Business Case and their approval of the FBC as well as their review, and approval before their signature, of the draft contracts for the delivery of the project;
• the Scottish Ministers should be involved in the delivery of the project as they were before the withdrawal of the support of officials from Transport Scotland in 2007 and following the resumption of infrastructure works after the mediation settlement at Mar Hall; and
• as a condition of the grant the local authority should be obliged to comply with the project monitoring and control procedures of Transport Scotland and should ensure that robust, transparent, externally verifiable project controls for the project are in place.