This is from the UK Government website at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/consultant-for-manston-airport-review-announced
"The decision to appoint an independent consultant was
made by the Department for Transport after Thanet District Council was unable
to agree a suitable indemnity partner in a compulsory purchase order. PwC will
report back to the DfT and the council in May 2015."
So obviously both TDC and the DfT should have the report.
I have just phoned TDC and one of their senior officers (the
chief executive) says they haven't received the report yet.
I also phoned the DfT who say the haven't released anything
new on Manston but they don’t know for certain that they haven't received the
PwC report and they will check and come back to me on it.
Its a good job the TDC are not picking up the bill, PWC charge £495 per hour for a specialist manager and £100 per hour for a specialist support staff member.
ReplyDeleteThey must have racked up 300 hours to date.
I can't imagine it took PwC more than a couple of hours to go through the paperwork provided to them. The protracted delay in producing their report is just part of a political game. Manston Pickle is suggesting that we may never see the report at all.
ReplyDeleteJust had a look at all of the Manston social media and there seems to be a total lack of information about the PwC report and hardly any comment about it not appearing. I guess the lack of reaction to its non appearance is equally as surprising as its non appearance.
ReplyDeleteThe sequence of events will probably be that TDC conclude their review of whether TDC should proceed with a CPO, TDC proceed with the CPO, the government then issue the Manston report which confirms the Labour led TDC decision not to proceed with a CPO. And what do you then have? The first Ukip led council in the country making an ass of itself.
ReplyDeleteLooking at the DfT website, it appears that PwC would submit their report to the DfT by the end of May, DfT would then presumably take a view on when (or if) to publish. Like Dave I do wonder if the Minister's special advisers will see this as an opportunity to damage UKIP...
ReplyDeleteRumours on the SMA website suggest that the radar at Manston has been sold...
PwC didn't have to do a lot. Can you imagine the wailing and gnashing of teeth if it turns out that their report arrived at the DfT some time ago?
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering why Michael hasn't had a call back from the DfT. Yesterday, when he asked about the PwC report, they used some weasel words to avoid saying whether or not they actually had the report. I'm taking this to mean that they've had the report but they don't want to tell anyone they've got it and don't want to tell anyone what's in it.
ReplyDeleteMy take at the moment Arjun is that the government are gob smacked by what appears to be a part of the UK saying that it wants an airfreight hub when all of the other parts of the country are trying to avoid any sort of aviation activity in their backyards, perhaps they are looking for some mileage in this. Political, environmental – I don’t really know. Eventually I expect various reports supporting whatever they can get out of this unusual state of affairs will appear.
ReplyDeleteThe Gazette is reporting that the DfT has received the PwC report, but that there is no time-frame for publishing it. My take on this is that it doesn't say what they wanted it to say, so they are holding it back whilst trying to work out how they 'spin' it. I wonder when they actually received it.
ReplyDelete