House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, UK, has warned that the errors made "in the procurement process" in the West Coast franchise by the Department for Transport (DfT) may result in a loss of more than $75 million of the taxpayers' money, reports london24.com.
The report from the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee stated an irresponsible procedure of handling the projects by the department and failing to learn from the previous mistakes has led to this catastrophe.
The MPs also said if no serious actions are taken the mistakes already made may tend to continue in the future projects including London to Birmingham high-speed HS2 scheme and the London Thameslink project, reports london24.com.
"The Department for Transport's complete lack of common sense in the way it ran the West Coast franchise competition has landed the taxpayer with a bill of £50 million at the very least," Margaret Hodge, MP for Barking, said in a statement, explaining the cause of the disaster. "If you factor in the cost of delays to investment on the line, and the potential knock-on effect on other franchise competitions, then the final cost to the taxpayer will be very much larger."
"For three months, there was no single person in charge at all. Not only that, there was no senior civil servant in the team responsible for the work, despite the critical importance of this multi-billion pound franchise," Hodge said.
"Given that the Department got it so wrong over this competition, we must feel concern over how properly it will handle future projects, including HS2 and Thameslink. The Department needs to get its house in order and put basic principles and practices at the heart of what it does."
