‘Lessons must be learnt from St Colman’s project failures’ – McKevitt | Latest Newry News, Newry Sport and Newry Business for Newry City

‘Lessons must be learnt from St Colman’s project failures’ – McKevitt

SDLP Culture spokesperson, South Down MLA, Karen McKevitt says the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure must learn lessons from the NI Audit Office report on the Project Management of the St. Colman’s College Sports Project.

SDLP MLA Karen McKevitt

Commenting on the report after Sport NI appeared before the Culture Arts and Leisure Committee Mc Kevitt said: “This is without doubt a damning indictment of Sport NI’s project management of the St Colman’s project; an example of how not to go about managing a project.

“The body has driven a coach and horses through good practice, established processes and accepted standards and, although a good project was delivered in the end, the road to delivery was far from good.

“I think we all owe a debt of gratitude to the journalist who, due to his persistence, brought these issues to public awareness despite being treated with disdain by officials in Sport NI. I support the committee’s proposal that Sport NI should issue an apology to the journalist concerned,” she insisted.

Dominic Bradley, SDLP MLA for Newry and Armagh who is a member of the CAL Committee said, “This the latest in a series of project management failures by the Culture, Arts, and Leisure Department and, by comparison with some other projects, involves a relatively small sum of money.

“The failures around the St Colman’s project come on the back of those which were part of the 2008-11 Programme for Government, where the Department had a target to deliver £229 million capital investment in the Northern Ireland culture, arts and leisure infrastructure.

“This unprecedented level of investment by the Department resulted in delivery of a number of major capital projects behind schedule and above budget.

Bradley added, “I have proposed, through the Committee, the Minister come to the Committee to explain what action her Department is taking to ensure that business cases are sufficiently robust and projects properly managed within budget and timescale.”

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Posted by on Feb 7 2014. Filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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