Failure to follow advice deemed 'parasitic'

The Natural Environment Research Council this week was taken to pieces by the Public Accounts Committee over the construction of the Southampton University's Oceanography Centre. The committee, acting on a report from the National Audit Office, criticised the council's repeated failure to follow advice in not appointing a project manager, in its relationship with its architects and in the general management of the construction which overspent considerably. Charles Wardle MP said this had been "parasitic" on the taxpayer.