THE spiralling cost of the Carnegie Leisure Centre refurbishment has again come under fire from MSP Alex Rowley, who believes no lessons have been learned by Fife Council.

When he was council leader, Mr Rowley called for the scrutiny committee to look at how a project which should have cost £11million ended up at £21million and rising, with issues such as falling tiles, leaks and poor air quality still to be resolved.

The council had ploughed on with the redevelopment of the centre, now more than 110 years old, despite widespread calls for a new state-of-the-art complex – like those now built at Kirkcaldy and Glenrothes.

There were warnings that building on such an old site was risky and could lead to a multitude of difficulties and this proved to the case when work started.

After receiving a report on the centre project, the scrutiny committee “noted that had the contract been tendered on the basis of design and build, the level of risk on the refurbishment would have been too great for any single contractor and the resulting tender prices would have been unsustainable”.

It also “acknowledged that the traditional procurement option selected had resulted in an unrealistically low tender being submitted and that relationships on the project had become purely contractual” and “acknowledged that a partnering procurement route might have been more successful for this contract”.

Ken Gourlay, head of asset and facilities management for Fife Council, said, “The Carnegie Leisure Centre project was discussed at the scrutiny committee in November 2013 and a review of the procurement process followed. This culminated in a final report to the committee in June 2014.

“The committee discussed the pros and cons associated with the form of procurement used on the leisure centre project and the merits of using other procurement options.

“The committee concluded that there were other options that could have been considered for the procurement of the contract but were satisfied that there was no guarantee that they would have been any cheaper than the route chosen which was a traditional tender to the open market. The committee were also satisfied that there were sufficient governance arrangements for major projects to assess the best route to market.” However, the council statement did not impress Mr Rowley, who has also raised the management of the project at Holyrood.

He said, “Lessons should be learned from the mistakes made in this whole episode but it doesn’t sound as if they have. If you have a project which should cost £11million and ends up costing £21million with many issues still unresolved, it’s obvious that things have gone wrong and the council can’t be satisified about how it has gone. It’s an example of what is wrong with local government.

“I have constituents asking all the time why they didn’t get a new sports centre like the one in Glenrothes which cost the same amount.”