There is panic at the Senate House.

Two weeks ago it was revealed that the North West Cambridge development was forecast to run significantly over-budget after the Vice Chancellor commissioned an audit to examine the project’s failings. This week saw a meeting of the Estates of the development and the university’s Board of Scrutiny – its version of a Commons select committee – to discuss the findings.

For the most part, their critique is scathing.

Various members of the Board of Scrutiny and the Council, the university’s governing body, take it in turns to deplore the managerial failings and difficulties this project has faced. Two issues stand out in particular. The first is the repeated assertions by various parties to the discussion to learn the lessons from the “CAPSA debacle”. This was the attempt in the late 90s to roll out a centralised system for accounts which, like many large-scale IT projects, initially failed, causing what contemporary news reports called “chaos”.

A Varsity article dated 16 November 2001 quotes the author of the report, Professor Anthony Finkelstein from UCL: “CAPSA has cost a lot of money, damaged the integrity of the university’s financial processes and soured relationships between academics and administration.” A spokesperson for the then Vice Chancellor was quoted as saying that the university accepts the “significant recommendations about management responsibility and accountability, and the university’s corporate governance”. Plus ça change...

The second concern is the worrying suggestion about the threat to the lives of the children attending the university’s new primary school because of infrastructure issue. When a senior academic has “the gravest concern about the possibility of a tragic accident”, there is a significant problem.

It is important to stress that blame is not solely to be laid at the university’s door, as the County Council has overall responsibility for highways, and the university is expected to release a full statement in due course. But this part of the discussion was not even meant to take place – matters pertaining to the school were not included in the original audit. Had the matter not been raised, there is no guarantee that the information would have been released into the public domain. Every parent of a child at that school has the right to know that a senior member of the university harbours serious concerns about the safety of their children.

Even if the issues raised during the discussion are fully resolved and the project completes successfully, the reputational damage of the university’s reticence on this could prove long-lasting. When safety is at stake, there are no excuses for secrecy.