Cost over runs by Network Rail at Kings Cross station office refurbishment

Dear Sir or Madam,

I should be grateful for copies of all correspondence, email,
meeting minutes, reports, spreadsheets and other records held by
the Department concerning cost over runs by Network Rail in their
refurbishment of the Kings Cross station offices generally known as
the Eastern Range.

Press reports have suggested a cost over run of £30million on a
project budgeted at £30 million see
http://www.cnplus.co.uk/news/kings-cross...

This £30m over run is just under 10% of the overall budget for the
station refurbishment so i assume that the Department will have
been notified and will have investigated the matter.

These expensive offices are solely for the use of network rails own
staff and there is a strong public interest in understanding how
such an exorbitant over run came about, how this was reported to
the Department, then Minister responsible and the actions taken
against the network rail staff managing the project.

My preferred format to receive this information is by electronic
means. If one part of this request can be answered sooner than
others, please send that information first followed by any
subsequent data. If you need any clarification of this request
please feel free to email me. If FOI requests of a similar nature
have already been asked could you please include your responses to
those requests.

I am aware that network rail is not covered directly by FOI, but
the Department is, which is why i am asking you for this
information. As Network Rail is a quasi public body and much of the
cost overrun is being blamed on heritage requirements enforced by
another public body, English Heritage citing commercial
confidentiality in this case would be a nonsense and against the
public interest.

Many public authorities release their contracts and similar
information with private
vendors and quasi public bodies such as Network Rail in line with
the Freedom of Information Act. The exemption
for commercial interest under the Act (section 43) is a qualified
exemption, which means information can only be withheld if it is in
the public’s interest. The public have an interest in knowing the
terms of contracts awarded by public authorities, whether or not
public money changes hands immediately.

If you are relying on section 41 (the exemption for legal breach of
confidence) then I would like to know the following: • When these
confidentiality agreements were agreed • All correspondence and
email in which these confidentiality agreements were discussed. •
The precise wording of the confidentiality agreements

I ask these questions because guidance issued by both the Lord
Chancellor (draft guidance on FOI implementation) and the Office of
Government Commerce (Model terms and conditions for goods and
services) specifically state that public authorities should not
enter into these types of agreements; they go directly against the
spirit of the laws of disclosure. I would also point to the
Information Commissioner’s guidance on accepting blanket commercial
confidentiality agreements: ‘Unless confidentiality clauses are
necessary or reasonable, there is a real risk that, in the event of
a complaint, the Commissioner would order disclosure in any case.’

Finally, within the law of confidence there is also a public
interest test. Therefore, the contracts should be disclosed in
full. If any parts are redacted they must be for information that
can be proven to be a legal breach of confidence in court, and only
then where secrecy can be shown to be in the public interest. These
are difficult positions to argue when public money is at stake or
where a public authority is offering a private company a monopoly
to charge its stakeholders.

Yours faithfully,

william perrin
www.kingscrossenvironment.com

Dear Sir or Madam,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of
Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Department for
Transport's handling of my FOI request 'Cost over runs by Network
Rail at Kings Cross station office refurbishment'.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is
available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/co...

the response is incomplete and contains only synthesised
information, not the range of materials requested.

network rail is embarked upon a major refurbishment of kings cross
station a complex grade 1 listed building. the partial information
released demonstrates that network rail cannot control costs on an
office refurbishment in a listed building. there is no explanation
of why the costs rose out of control nor what steps the department
took to manage this and make ministers aware.

this is a disturbing precedent for the more complex rail and
structural engineering works NR has to undertake on kings cross
station. more broadly, network rail has a major station building
programme underway worth hundreds of millions of pounds, for which
this overspend at the very outset bodes ill.

the information released does not make clear to what extent the
Department was kept informed of this overspend, nor the
Department's interactions with network rail to bring the costs
under control.

there is a strong public interest in revealing the detailed
documents first requested to show how the department keeps track of
network rail's cost controls, how ministers and senior officials
are kept informed, how network rail is asked to take remedial steps
and how it responds.

this isn't a matter of policy so much as simple competence in
engineering project management and should be open to public
scrutiny. my arguments about the lack of commerical confidentiality
issues in this case set out in the original submission also apply
here.

there is a real risk that the (vaguely) stated £400m budget for
kings cross will rise to the eye watering £800m of St Pancras.

Yours faithfully,

william perrin