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From Public Accounts Committee Transcript of Evidence 2nd November 2005

Sadiq Khan MP questioning Dame Sue from the Department of Culture Media and Sport

Q19 Mr Khan: Could I ask Dame Sue, would you accept the way the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain plans have been executed and the problems once opened could be described as a fiasco?

Dame Sue Street: No, certainly not. I have explained to the Chairman that there certainly were tough lessons to learn about a stricter project management discipline and we have taken those to heart with all subsequent projects. I do not think it can be described as a fiasco because since May, after the teething problems - the very severe troubles - have been put right, we have had over 600,000 visitors to the Memorial. It is obviously enormously popular, there were 16,000 on the anniversary of the Princess's death, there have been four accidents in the whole of that time compared to the beginning when, and I will be absolutely open with the Committee, we were overwhelmed by the number of visitors in the first few days. It has been a troubled project with a good and lasting outcome and some tough lessons learnt along the way.

Q20 Mr Khan: Up until now the cost of each visitor is about £10 a visit, if you divide the cost to date by the number of visitors, 600,000, putting aside the delay point. Were contracts signed with any of the private companies referred to as key stakeholders in the paperwork? What I am alluding to is, why has there been no litigation in relation to the companies who must be responsible for what I call a fiasco but you do not call a fiasco?

Dame Sue Street: I certainly do not think it was a fiasco. We do have some on-going negotiation which has not yet been resolved and of course I will advise the Committee as soon as that is complete. Although it would be very tempting to blame the contractors, I do not think that would be right. I think it was difficult estimating that extraordinary number of visitors which led to the way in which the ground and the turf plus the storm caused those early problems, and that is a function of an innovative memorial in a natural area and really nobody knowing quite what the draw would be.

Q21 Mr Khan: You have been at the DCMS since 1997?

Dame Sue Street: No, I took up my post at the beginning of January 2002.

Q22 Mr Khan: Were you in London in August 1997?

Dame Sue Street: Yes.

Q23 Mr Khan: Did you see the images on TV? Did you see the number who took part in the procession at the funeral?

Dame Sue Street: As it happened I was abroad at the Princess's death but of course we were aware ---

Q24 Mr Khan: It was a big deal.

Dame Sue Street: Part of the reason that this Memorial was dealt with by so many stakeholders was the enormous amount of interest, and of course we recognised this was huge. As I say, the estimate we made at the time was in fact the right one in the long-term, but was not the right one for the first few days.

Q25 Mr Khan: You will have seen, I am sure, when you prepared for today's evidence, the timetable of events, you will have seen the various hoops which must have been gone through before the work on the Fountain began in 2003; a six year process from the Princess's death, before opening eight years after her death. At no stage during that time was it expected that people would want to come and see the Memorial to celebrate her life?

Dame Sue Street: I am sorry?

Q26 Mr Khan: I find it implausible to believe that nobody said, "Halt, lots of people will want to go to the Memorial".

Dame Sue Street: We did estimate up to 5,000 people a day, which is quite a lot really compared to others. I absolutely accept that if we had had the normal project management disciplines we would have had a contingency fund which would have said, "The sensitivities around these visitor numbers is such ....", and I certainly regret that we did not get our estimate right.

Q27 Mr Khan: Do you accept the figures in this report?

Dame Sue Street: Yes.

Q28 Mr Khan: We have been told the final cost of the project will be in the region of £5 million. How much of that will be got back from the private contractors after your negotiations?

Dame Sue Street: It will not be a large amount. I might take the opportunity, if it helps, of explaining where the big additional figures came in, but it would not be right to say to this Committee that a huge amount will come back after the negotiations. There are two big blocks which are so significant it might help to explain them. One was a decision to go for Cornish granite rather than Portland stone. That was an expensive decision which added £400,000 to the cost of the stone but it was taken absolutely according to project management principles, looking at the whole life project, in that over 50 years the Portland stone would have needed constant maintenance and renewal and water-proofing and cleaning, and over that time the Cornish granite will last much better and will save about £2.4 million. So that was a big decision and I think justifiable under the normal trade-offs of cost, quality and time.

Q29 Mr Khan: Does that particular type of stone have an impact on the humungous cost of maintenance in general of a quarter of a million pounds?

Dame Sue Street: It reduces the cost of maintenance.

Q30 Mr Khan: So your initial projection was higher than a quarter of a million pounds a year to maintain this?

Dame Sue Street: No, because the initial projections did not take into account the staffing, the stewards, who form part of that quarter of a million.

Q31 Mr Khan: So nobody foresaw you needed stewards to be around the Memorial?

Dame Sue Street: As we have said, and we took RoSPA's advice as well on this, it was thought at the outset that if the patterns of behaviour were as we expected that due diligence had been complete and that we would not need stewards. Obviously it was right to put them in given the enormous numbers and the pattern of behaviour.

Q32 Mr Khan: Bearing in mind what we have just heard, and you have read the report, do you think the Memorial Fountain is an apt legacy and memorial to Diana?

Dame Sue Street: It is not for me to make a personal judgment. I think the enormous numbers - which, as I have admitted, we did not foresee at the beginning, but perhaps more interestingly now, we have already attracted over 600,000 since May - are testament to a great public appreciation of the Memorial. Of course with any work like this, it is innovative, it is contemporary, some people will love it, some people will hate it, and I think it is best for the public to decide.

Q33 Mr Khan: Bearing in mind the lack of foresight with the stewards, with the cost, with the maintenance cost, with the number of visitors originally predicted and the quality of stone, do you still think it was not a fiasco?

Dame Sue Street: I am absolutely certain that this was not a fiasco. This was a project which would have benefited from the sorts of disciplines I have described but which will be a lasting memorial, much-loved by the public, and as of course it continues up to 200 years I think it will become to be considered, as it already is, a landmark in London's parks.

Q34 Mr Khan: My last question is on the Royal Parks generally, do you believe bearing in mind the lack of people who use the Royal Parks, and in light of the lack of income these generate, that we can be satisfied with the way our national assets are looked after?

Dame Sue Street: One of our problems is that we do not know exactly how many people use the Royal Parks. The last solid estimate was around 30 million in 1994. All the feed-back we get from tourists, from Londoners and those outside, is that the Parks are an absolute national treasure in London. Together with the Chief Executive, the Department and the Parks want to encourage greater usage, and that is the road we should be on.

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