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All four of the British Antarctic Survey’s major capital projects are
over budget and two of them are running late, says the National Audit Office
in a report published this week.

However, John Bourn, head of the audit office, praised the BAS for its
‘considerable achievement given the formidable challenges of the Antarctic
environment’. The BAS’s deputy director Barry Heywood said that despite
the criticisms about the way projects were managed the report ‘generally
shows us in a favourable light’.

In the past 10 years the BAS has built a hard airstrip and a jetty at
its Rothera station and a replacement research station at Halley. It also
bought a Dash 7 aircraft intended for takeoff and landing on both wheels
and skis and built a new research ship, the James Clark Ross.

The initial estimate for the Rothera airstrip was £11.5 million.
The final cost was £16.7 million. The audit office criticises the
BAS for not commissioning an analysis of the financial risk involved. The
consultants employed by the BAS to design the jetty relied on a 1970s hydrographic
survey carried out by the Admiralty.

The building contractors told the BAS that the jetty was poorly positioned
and would not last. ‘As a result the jetty had to be redesigned and repositioned
increasing the cost from an estimated £81 000 to more than £2
million,’ says the NAO. A risk analysis would have shown the need for a
fresh hydrographic survey.

The James Clark Ross research ship was initially expected to cost £30
million. The final cost was £43 million. The audit office says that
part of the reason for this increase was that the BAS’s requirements had
not been finalised before the design contract was awarded. In an attempt
to save money the BAS decided to carry out the project management of building
the research ship itself. The audit office says that the BAS did not spend
enough on project management and it would ‘have been preferable to have
appointed a project officer . . . with specific knowledge and experience
of ship construction and larger-scale projects’.

The Halley research station, which was founded in 1956, is being buried
under snow at the rate of 1.5 metres a year. Four stations have already
been entombed. The fifth station is on a platform, which can be jacked up
to keep it 4.5 metres above the ground. Originally expected to cost £5.2
million, the station was two years late and cost £9.4 million. The
audit office says that the use of consulting engineers might have provided
advance warning of ‘technical deficiencies in the design specification’.

The cost of the Dash 7 aeroplane has also risen – from £10.4
to £12.5 million. Although the BAS carried out research and development
to fit the aircraft with skis this plan has been axed because of the cost
overrun.

Despite these criticisms the audit office concludes that the BAS ‘had
achieved reasonably good value for money on each of the projects’.