WHEN members of the then Board of Administration decided to give the New Jetty a new lease of life in 2001, little did they know what they were getting into.

And that, an exhaustive review by the Public Accounts Committee has found, was the precisely trouble: they should have done.

What ought to have been a comparatively routine £3.2m. project ran away and eventually ended up more than four times the projected cost, at £14.3m., and has become a byword for government’s inability to manage its affairs and stick to a capital budget.

At no stage was the proposal properly thought through, planned, costed or controlled and – worst of all – that is no one’s fault and no one can be held to account.

While the 1929 structure (‘new’ because it was a then modern addition to the Victorian harbour) needed repair and had been causing concern since 1968, no proper case or risk assessment was carried out and the board even reduced the allowance for contingencies from 25% to just 7%, which was lamentably too little.

Why did it do that? Because the thinking at the time was the job needed to be done, no questions asked.

The good news is that things have improved significantly since then and a much more professional approach is demanded and governance requirements mean that responsibility and accountability can be enforced.

Where Public Accounts is less happy, however, is with Public Services and Treasury and Resources resisting its call for the appointment of a head of capital projects so that future ones can be controlled centrally rather than remaining with the sponsoring department.

Having a specialist team, with experience, appears to make sense and would also avoid a departmental chief office with other duties having to pick up an unfamiliar role as project manager.

If the PAC report is approved, the Policy Council will have to reconsider the issue and come to a conclusion.

What the Board of Administration did just nine years ago was acceptable at the time but looks negligent now.

What taxpayers demand is best practice now.