Health minister defends hospital deal decision

Jersey's health minister has said he was right to sign a multimillion-pound contract to build a new hospital before work to review the deal was finished.

Senator Tom Binet agreed the deal with construction firm Bouygues UK for the £710m project days before June's general election.

That was despite the concerns of senior civil servants and the treasury minister that more due diligence was needed.

Binet said he thought it would have been "mindless" to let the process go on after the election, and said new politicians might have wanted to "turn the whole thing on its head".

The government has spent £204m on the hospital project since plans were developed in 2012.

Binet said Bouygues UK was concerned about political instability.

He said, without an election looming, he would still have signed the contract without the final due diligence if he was worried the company would have walked away from the deal.

Binet confirmed his decision in a letter of instruction to the chief officer of Health and Care Jersey, Tom Walker.

A letter of instruction is a rarely used procedure where a minister can formally tell a senior civil servant to take a certain course of action.

In the letter, Binet took responsibility for the contract signing "in advance of any further internal confirmations, approvals and reviews".

He noted this was against the wishes of the government's chief executive, treasurer, and then-Treasury Minister Elaine Millar.

He wrote: "I am prepared to rely on the significant levels of assurance provided to me already, and consider that on a balance of risks the benefits that may be obtained from further work prior to contracting and consequent delay are considerably outweighed by the potential for costs to increase further if I do not sign the contract imminently."

Deputy Lyndsay Feltham, the chair of the scrutiny panel which reviews public policy, said the process was "concerning".

"He took the element of risk he was comfortable with, but, potentially, he was leaving risk with another person [had he not been re-elected and returned as health minister]."

Feltham was the social security minister in the last government.

She added: "We need to move ahead with the hospital building. It's important that we now have contractors in place.

"It's also important that we are assured that the public finances manual and the public finances legislation is followed by ministers."

Feltham said it was, ultimately, good Binet was very focused on finishing the hospital project, but it was important the right processes, due diligence and advice was followed.

Speaking to BBC Jersey, Binet said he had unanimous support from the Council of Ministers to sign the contract.

Asked if that was a contradiction to his letter of instruction - where he noted concerns from the treasury minister - Binet explained that was not the case.

He said he received several letters of concern after issuing the letter of instruction.

He then took advice from the attorney general, and called an urgent Council of Ministers meeting, where he said he had full agreement from all ministers to sign the contract.

"I couldn't give a damn about me in the elections," he said.

"I said I'd get things done, I told the public they'd have a contract signed before the election, and they did."

The final due diligence work was completed soon after the election, and Binet said, since that had been done, he could not see a problem with his decision.

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