reference to a specific datum and confirmed with the road authority, that wherever possible all basic design. parameters should be determined by the Design Division before handing over a project to the Construction Division, that contract specifications should be worded precisely, and that procedures on the management of the work of consultants should be issued. I have suggested to both the Director of Water Supplies and the Director of New Territories Development that they should critically review the performance of their consultants to see if they have discharged their duties with due care and that if negligence on the part of the consultants is identified, the Government should take appropriate action to apportion the responsibility for the additional expenditure incurred and to recover the additional costs incurred.
213.
The Director of New Territories Development has commented that he fully agrees that close co-ordination in highways works and watermain laying is essential. The Director has informed me that he supports my recommendation that the vertical profile of utilities should be obtained at the design stage although vertical profiles are not always available from the utilities companies and the Water Supplies Department. The Director has also informed me that he agrees in principle that the actual level of watermains should be checked prior to tendering of the roadworks contract, but has stated that there are practical and financial limitations on the extent to which such checks can be carried out. The Director has expressed the view that as the Water Supplies Department had been advised in this case of the land use and the requirement of the road level to accord with the adjoining carriageway, it is not unreasonable for the roadworks consultants to assume that the watermains should have been laid with adequate cover and further check was therefore not necessary. The Director of New Territories Development has concluded that failure to obtain confirmation on the actual profile of the watermains is not a sufficient reason to charge the road works consultants with negligence.
214. The Director of Water Supplies has informed me that the existing procedures are already adequate for enabling effective co-ordination with the road authority, his view being that even in this unfortunate case it is not so much a question of the procedure being at fault, but that various parties have at different stages failed to recognize some important aspects which were essential to produce an adequate design and to complete an acceptable construction. The Director has agreed that a change in the management of a contract after commencement is not a very desirable practice and is unlikely to be repeated in future. His department had resorted to it in only two other similar cases, and only when there was no alternative. The Director also informed me that in a
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