The BT Rural Broadband Project came to completion at the end of August 2016, with an underspend of £1.7m.
The project, contentious at the time, was originally approved (with a split vote) by the Isle of Wight council (IWC) executive in September 2013, and due to be 99% completed by September 2015.
BT held to account
The Executive member in charge of the project, Cllr Shirley Smart, assured Islanders at the time that the preferred bidder, BT, would be held to account should they not deliver on the contractual arrangements.
A number of conditions were set at the beginning of the project.
All bar one rural broadband cabinet (Niton) have been installed.
Under budget by £1.7m
Papers for next week’s Scrutiny Committee (see below) reveal that the project (originally estimated to be around a £3m cost to the Isle of Wight council) has come in a whopping £1.7m under budget.
Were all conditions met?
With the project now at completion stage, OnTheWight got in touch with the IWC to see whether all conditions had been met and whether any penalties had been imposed.
Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) – part of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport responsible for delivering superfast broadband and better mobile connectivity to the nation – have provided ‘independent assurance’ that conditions of the Rural Broadband Contract had been met.
An Isle of Wight Council spokesperson, told OnTheWight,
“All the criteria in the contract have been met although it took longer to complete than originally envisaged.
“There were no penalty clauses in the contract on the basis that BT were only paid in arrears for what they were delivering and the additional time taken enabled better use of the public money resulting in a significant underspend.”
The paper
Details of the update can be read in full below. Click on the full screen icon to see larger version.
Image: togawanderings under CC BY 2.0
