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Podcast Transcript – Forth Replacement Crossing

I’m here with Jillian Matthew, who worked on our report looking at the management of the £1.3bn Queensferry Crossing project.
Jillian, thanks very much for joining me. The first question is the obvious one: the new bridge and everything that went with it cost a lot of public money. Has it been value for money?
Yes, the project has delivered value for money. Transport Scotland managed the project really effectively and they carried out a competitive procurement process, and this meant that the project was delivered under budget, so the cost was actually at least £110m less than expected. And it’s one of the most positive reports I’ve worked on at Audit Scotland. 
Ok. What exactly did they get so right on the project then?
Transport Scotland managed the project really well, from the start to the end. And there was a lot of really strong project management aspects to it, so like the budgeting, financial monitoring, governance, quality assurance and also risk management was carried out really well. 
But in particular we found that the delivery had the right skills and experience in place. And they also brought in external expertise that they needed early on in the project. They also demonstrated strong and consistent leadership, and communicated really well with contractors and external stakeholders as well.  
Would you not have expected all of those things to have happened anyway?
Yes, we would hope that these things are done well on projects. But with a large, complex ten-year project like this there’s a lot of opportunities for things to go wrong, and Transport Scotland did really well to keep it on track all the way through. An important factor that we found was that there was a real drive and ambition by the project team to do things well and to get it right first time. And we think there are a lot of lessons that the wider public sector can learn from this project. 
Of course, the Queensferry Crossing opened eight months late. Bad weather was blamed. Is that not an example of bad planning?
The bridge did open later than expected but it’s common for large-scale projects like this, worldwide, to run over time and budget. With the Queensferry Crossing they did plan for the effect of the weather on construction. And this included things like working really closely with the Met Office so they got bespoke forecasts for the site. And Transport Scotland obtained their data coming back 10 years. But what happened was that during the critical points of the bridge construction the weather was a lot worse than expected on previous years, so this did affect the construction and it need mean that it was delayed, but it didn’t actually affect the project costs at all. 
Your report says some of the project's wider benefits have still to be demonstrated, things such as improving public transport across the Forth and cutting journey times. Why is that the case?
At the moment, it’s simply too early to see some of the intended benefits, they’ll take a bit longer to be realized. But Transport Scotland is due to carry out a full evaluation later this year and they’ve got quite a lot of detail around measuring journey times and traffic flow. And the informal monitoring they’ve carried out so far is showing that this has been positive and they’re showing some improvements in these areas. 
What’s missing at the moment is a bit more detail around some of the other intended benefits. So, how they’re going to assess the impact of improved network connections and junctions, and also how the project is contributing to economic growth. There’s also a need to have clearer plans around how Transport Scotland’s going to support public transport providers to help meet the increasing demand for travel across the Forth. The project put in place some of the infrastructure needed for this but there needs to be clearer actions and timescales about how this is going to be delivered. 
Finally, then, a decade ago there were suggestions the crossing was, to quote one commentator at the time, a bridge too far and public money could have been better spent. Did the Scottish Government get this one right?
So, we found there was a clear need for the bridge. Transport Scotland carried out extensive work looking at the condition of the existing bridge and also options for a new crossing. The corrosion that was found on the main cables of the Forth Road Bridge meant that traffic could be restricted from 2017, so they did need to take action fairly quickly. And Scottish Ministers made a timely decision to go ahead with the project and maintain the important road network between Edinburgh and Fife. 
And Transport Scotland’s decision to go ahead and build a new cable-stayed bridge was a cheaper option than repairing the old bridge and also building other options, so they looked at other types of bridges and tunnels as well. And the design of the new bridge meant that it was easier to construct and there was less risks involved in construction. And they built in various features which means that it’s more reliable and resilient than the existing bridge too. And we also found that there a clear business case for the project.  
Ok. Jillian, thank you very much indeed. 
And if you want to read our report on the Forth Replacement Crossing you can download it from our website - audit-scotland.gov.uk. 
ENDS