recent audit review of buildings in this programme, I noted certain weaknesses in the Vocational Training Council's capital works procedures and the way in which they were applied. Adequate consultation did not always take place at thening stage and full consideration was not always given to the costs of the buildings. Although the Vocational Trang Council has established guidelines on space requirements for its buildings, the Government has not yet devised a set of building accommodation standards for the Vocational Training Council, to include the functional and the aesthetic appeal of the buildings, the quality of fittings, equipment and finishes, the extent of air-conditioning and the provision of lifts and escalators. The Government policy on building standards was set out in general terms in the 1978 White Paper on Senior Secondary and Tertiary Education which stated that technical institutes should be able to operate on a more cost-effective basis and to offer better facilities for the students. However, nothing was done to set out in detail what these better facilities should be and the Vocational Training Council was left to interpret this policy in their own way. Nevertheless, another control procedure should have enabled the Government to check any extravagances at an early stage because, in common with the universities and polytechnics, the Vocational Training Council was required to submit sketch plans to the Director of Architectural Services and to seek his endorsement, that the estimated cost of a project was reasonable and acceptable, before the detailed design of a building was started.
126. In December 1982 the Secretary for Education and Manpower gave approval in principle for the building of the Tuen Mun and Sha Tin Technical Institutes at the following early 1982 estimated project costs:
-Tuen Mun Technical Institute
-Sha Tin Technical Institute
$75,400,000
$103,075,000
These buildings were opened in September 1986 and in my examination of the projects I found that unnecessary expenditure of $8.6 million had to be incurred on architect's fees, mainly for abortive design work, following a Government requirement to save $45 million which made it necessary for the two technical institutes to be redesigned to more modest proportions.
127. The Vocational Training Council got off to a false start by a decision, apparently against the advice of the Director of Architectural Services who was concerned about the extra time and cost, to hold a limited competition for the architectural design of the buildings. In issuing briefs to the architects in April and May 1983 the Vocational Training Council used the early 1982 estimated project costs as current costs. Since 1982 was a year of falling contract prices the estimates should have been adjusted downwards, from $75 million to $68 million for the Tuen Mun Technical Institute and from $103 million to $93 million for the Sha Tin Technical Institute, in line with the Tender Price Index. Therefore, the architects may have been misguided into over-designing the two institutes, particularly as the briefs indicated that the estimated project costs were to be treated as guidelines only and not as maximum limits. Thus, the appointed architect for the Sha Tin Technical Institute later raised his initially submitted preliminary estimate to $128 million.
128. Another reason that may have led to the over-design of the buildings was the high priority given to the aesthetic appeal of the building designs and the low priority to costs. Although it was explained in the architects' briefs that the estimated costs would be taken into account in selecting the architects for the projects, it was noted from the criteria used by the Vocational Training Council to assess the merits of the various competing designs that the cost of the projects was not a factor for which points were awarded in judging the successful designs even though the estimated costs were available for information. On the other hand, the aesthetic appeal of the building designs was given a high weighting in the award of points and I have suggested that the results of the limited architectural competition tend to throw doubt on the justification for such a competition and that the Vocational Training Council might have better achieved their objective by selecting one architect to design each building with more weight given to their functional attributes and costs, thereby producing a more cost-effective building design for the two institutes in the first instance without having to spend $800,000 for the unsuccessful designs.
129. The sketch plans of the two institutes, at an estimated cost of $213 million, were forwarded to the Director of Architectural Services in mid-January 1984 and his comment, that the scope of the accommodation provided was considerably greater than that provided for Government-built technical institutes, prompted the response from the Director of Technical Education and Industrial Training that the Vocational Training Council were aiming at a higher standard of building and improved facilities, a development which he considered to be in accordance with Government policy. However, the Deputy Financial Secretary was not satisfied and considered that a cost saving of at least $45 million should be made even if it meant that the buildings would have to be completely redesigned. The designs were then revised and accepted at an estimated cost of $167 million for the two institutes.
130. Unfortunately, and contrary to the procedures, the Vocational Training Council had allowed the architects to proceed with the detailed design of the buildings and to prepare contract and tendering documents before the sketch plans had been approved. Consequently, nugatory expenditure on architect's fees, amounting to $4.6 million for the Tuen Mun Technical Institute design and $3.2 million for that of the Sha Tin Technical Institute, was incurred following the Government's disapproval of the plans for the two buildings. With the timely intervention of the Deputy Financial Secretary, which resulted in the two institutes being redesigned to more modest proportions, the loss was thus limited to only $8.6 million, including the $800,000 for the unsuccessful designs.
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