NI Water: Why did MacKenzie break up NIW’s commercial review team?
With the inclusion of a submission to the PAC from Contracting Out, the NI Audit Office team will almost certainly spotlight NI Water’s customer service and IT contract with Steria Ltd.
Not least since this is the only part of the initial controversy that substantially touches on the value for money issue.
For all the accusations flowing in the direction of the sacked NEDs, it is important to note that Mr MacKenzie was given a detailed briefing on his arrival in post by previous acting CEO and then Chair Chris Mellor on a number of failures and over payments the company’s commercial review team believed they had identified in this Contract.
Mellor also informed him of a court action, NI Water vs Steria, that had recently been initiated through the Court of Chancery (Case 09/069974). However, once Laurence McKenzie took over the reins of the company he abandoned this aggressive tack. Shortly after, this action was dropped.
Now, Steria is suing NI Water for monies which Steria alleges were improperly withheld from it under a separate action in the Queens Bench (Case 09/102351). This case is subject to the laws of sub judice, so that the issues directly at play there cannot be discussed.
Further, MacKenzie thereafter retrenched the Commercial Director, David Gilmour, who had been leading a wider investigation into procurement issues (and had in the process exceeded a DRD-set savings target of £15.3 million by £10 million), out of the business.
He also then dispersed Gilmour’s investigation team (led by Contracting Out) who had been conducting a commercial review of the Steria Contract.
Now, whilst it may not affect the final outcome, defending the Steria action, as opposed to leading an NI Water action, may have the rather convenient effect of narrowing the amount of detailed information that is likely to come to light. Perhaps this was the intention?
But the Public Accounts Committee and the NI Audit Office’s investigative team should look for a great deal more contextual information from the papers lodged with the court in respect of the first, now completed, action begun in June 2009.
Our current understanding is that these can be got hold of by those with a sufficient interest (fee of £150) through application to the Judge Master.
Now there’s an interesting twist in this constantly twisting tale. In the course of our research, we discovered that the Managing Director for Steria Ltd was a local boy called Paul Wickens (LinkedIn profile here).
By January 2009, NI Water was informed that Mr Wickens was no longer with Steria Ltd. And by August 2009 (around the same time MacKenzie started at NI Water) he took up a post as under Secretary at DFP.
Steria’s action against Northern Ireland Water began on September 18th 2009. Intriguingly, the company’s writ lists a ‘P Wickens’ as the contact for Steria.
Now, let me be clear. I am not suggesting for a moment there is a causal link here (and nor should anyone else). But I think we should be told exactly what was going on…
Topic: Government, Society and Culture
Region: Northern Ireland
2 Sept 2009 – Minister and DRD senior officials hosted meeting and ‘lunch and beverages’ for Laurence MacKenzie [£141.60]
The meeting is reported in the September 8 ET minutes:
“a. Laurence MacKenzie reported on his recent meeting with the Minister and Permanent Secretary and said that they had expressed disappointment that NIW had not put a representative forward to comment on the recent flooding in East Belfast. It was established that the [Crystal] Alliance [inc Steria] contract was giving some smaller contractors cause for concern. Laurence MacKenzie acknowledged that NIW must deliver efficiencies but said that a balance needed to be made with regard to timeframes if this was to be done correctly.”
The Minister and the PS appear to have been adopting a fairly strong ‘hands-on’ approach to the operation of NI Water.
yuouu are right condition F1 of consolidated contract
Are reading that into a single meeting with hindsight?
With presumption, Mick. The meeting was recent to September 8, there was flooding in East Belfast on August 31 and the previous ET meeting was mid August.
Good to see Slugger and the Sluggerites still asking questions.
But what about other questions?
Whatever happened to Baby Jane?
How much is that doggy in the window?
How many roads must a man walk down?
And not forgetting:
When will the bloggers finally disappear up their own arses?
Mopp
But sure you have the answers.
Don’t get confused between Executive Directors, which is a statutorily defined role under the Companies Act 2006, and senior Executives, who are often given the “Director” title even though they are not members of the Board.
In the list above, the names with one star against their names are Executive Directors and therefore Board members, ie MacKenzie, Venning, Butler and Larkin.
The Executive Team, Leadership Team, Management Team, etc in a company or business line can be made up of anybody that the CEO feels would add positively to the debate over how the business should be run.
1, She ends up deranged.
2. The one with waggly tail?
3. The answer is blowing in the wind
4. Dunno. Tell us.
‘the times “they are a -changing”’
There used to be a bar on York Road called ‘The Times Bar’
One of the classic, clever pieces of graffiti of ‘the troubles era’ must have been when they decided to do it up and some wag spray-canned ‘the Times, they are a changing’ on its gable wall.
I wonder if minutes were taken at that September 2 meeting. If so, they might shed some light on what was really going on in NIW governance.
mopphead, it’s great to see the watchdogs asking the same and similar questions; perhaps we’ll see less licking and more nipping
Still he doesn’t get a mention, despite being part of the Executive Team/ Committee/Gang.
Almost as if he had never been there…
Just wondering if there was a compromise agreement in place, on his departure.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/37194045/IRT-Submission-to-PAC
Nope…Nothing there about meeting the Minister.
Hmph, one imagines they would have remembered that.
There’s an awful lot of this type of amnesia lately …
Don’t forget. The Minister’s statement to the Assembly at noon on NI Water governance.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-politics-11283107
Minister Murphy calls for the “renationalisation” of NIW. NIW is still of course 100% owned by DRD so I”m not sure what he’s getting at. More control? Better control? Back to Water Service levels of investment and financial controls? That would consign to the bin all the improvements that have been made since 2007.
Removing its status as a NDPB would also mean DRD assuming the debt which I doubt Sammy Wilson would welcome.
NIA Hansard:
“13 September 2010
Due to technical difficulties we have been unable to display today’s Official Report.
We hope that normal service will be resumed tomorrow.”
Gremlins? Or bloggers?
Wickens was removed as MD of Steria Ireland much earlier than January 2009. I would say sometime around August 09 – he was on garden leave for a long time.
Did you mean August 2008, Malairt?
Tsk, yes I did. August 2008. Sorry.