Alexandra Palace Organ

London N22 4AY

 

 

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Letter from IAN BELL to the APOA dated 13th March 2003

[This has been scanned and converted to text with an OCR program to save bandwidth, any errors are ours or the program’s. Anyone wanting a photocopy of the original please contact the webmaster@alexandrapalaceorgan.com]

Thank you for the copy of the relevant section of the minutes of your August meeting, and in all the circumstances I find it somewhat awkward to say that this still leaves me feeling uneasy, and wary of becoming further entangled. To start with (and perhaps least significantly) we have agreement because I do not think (as Alan Taylor suggests) that any consultant should 'advise on the best firm.' • My own standard terms of reference specifically exclude that - it is for the client to decide the contractor, assisted simply by advice from the consultant which the client is at liberty to ignore (though, if in the opinion of the adviser the choice of contractor puts the project or the adviser's role at risk, then obviously he should be free to step back and withdraw from further involvement).

I do agree with Mr Taylor, though, that it is unhealthy to push the Willis firm to the exclusion of

consideration of others. Surely, the most appropriate firm should surface, following a proper tendering process which gives the necessary breath of clean fresh air to what to me (in common with many observing casually, and perhaps cynically, from the outside over many years) seems a very inward-looking, angst-ridden and consequently needlessly prolonged affair.

This tendering must not just be some sort of facade but a genuine commitment. I cannot otherwise see how public confidence is to be gained, and if public confidence is not thought important then in all honesty how on earth can public funding be expected. But frankly I cannot see such a genuine commitment surfacing here. Unlike what was originally put to me, the instructions from the committee keep reverting to the same theme, and given that starting point I'm quite sure that even if a mutually acceptable form of words describing my task were found, it would be no more than words, and that when I had produced a brief its real purpose would be at grave risk of being ignored either by APOA or by APCT.

None of my business, you may truthfully say. Certainly, even having allowed for the varying degrees of detail or emphasis, the brief suggested for my involvement here is extremely limited, and even if it were closer to the much wider responsibility that comes with the role of an advisor or 'consultant', the question of what procedure is undertaken, and what means are used to choose the contractor, would be no more my business than they are the business of the APOA.

I'm sure you would agree that I do, though, have an obligation to politely decline to become involved if (as here) the basis upon which I agreed to undertake the limited amount of work you are seeking has shifted to the extent that I feel uncomfortable about it, and doubt that I can properly fulfil my duty to the client or - more selfishly - properly maintain a visibly independent role. The position here was that I agreed to investigate, quite independently, what exists at the site; list what exists elsewhere (in so far as it is shown to me); and come to a conclusion about what appears to be missing. Thereafter I was asked to draw up a scheme to which tenderers might quote. (On past experience I would certainly expect those tenderers to want to make their own checks, but perhaps - though I doubt it - they would be happy at least to give outline budget figures on the basis of someone else's conclusions.) So far so good. Since then the emphasis has shifted back towards a liaison of some kind with the Willis firm; and even after the reservations expressed in my last letter, your most recent enclosure suggests "....preferably to work with David Wyld in reporting on the cost of these works." So in other words I unavoidably become party to the Willis bid for the work - assuming bids are actually to be sought - and therefore I would be unable to comment disinterestedly on any other bids, or to talk to those bidders in such a way that they would feel confident of my impartiality.

I further believe that for historical reasons David sits in on the committee that makes these decisions, which is a little unsettling, and that despite his welcome offer of being ready to take part in a tendering process, he has rather diluted that by declining to stand down until a very large sum has been raised. I'm not sure what grounds he has for saying that. but even if he has such grounds it invalidates the whole procedure of tendering. What if someone else wins? Are HW & Sons to be publicised as the chosen builder until the moment that the magic figure is reached and then mysteriously replaced overnight?

Because what APCT doesn't seem to realise is that there are artistic matters at stake here — this is not just like some anonymous firm pouring so many cubic metres of concrete to an architect's specification - and the first question that any knowledgeable potential donor or supporter will ask or will ask their friends who they think are knowledgeable, is "Who's doing the work?"

The last thing that interests me is getting involved in any of the warring factions here. I get the impression that my appearance here is seen by some as being all part of a wider plot to oust Willis. What would that benefit me? I unreservedly applaud David Wyld’s efforts in working to resuscitate the ailing Willis firm, and I have no sides to take in the Alexandra Palace project. Indeed, I have no real interest in, or enthusiasm about, the project at all; and, as you probably know, I rather think that the whole thing has no real purpose, and that the space could be put to more profitable use. But I readily accept that others have different views and are eager to work towards the realisation of their aims. To the extent that I have been asked for professional input here I would have pursued that diligently, and I emphatically and have no interest in ousting anyone. Quite the reverse — it's a matter of not treating Willis with improper favouritism, given that they do have quite a bit of work to do here to justify their pitch (which doesn't seem to rate significantly with your committee, something which certainly makes me even warier of 'sitting in their corner' as it were).

Now standing back a little, though it's not difficult to cover the ground again, we might reasonably expect that, of all people, those who must already have a very detailed idea of what material exists, and what is required to complete it, must be the Willis firm themselves. After all (a) the surviving material has been in their care since it was removed from the Palace and (b) they have already, more than once, submitted costs for completing the work. To do that responsibly they must have the details of what is involved, and what is needed. So the fact that I have been asked to shadow them, as it were, and double-check those conclusions unavoidably implies — if not an actual lack of trust of the Willis firm — at the least an acknowledgement that the project should not proceed on their word alone.

That's fair enough as far as the establishment of the materials goes, but the element that suggests, as I understand it, my working with Willis (or anyone) to verify or justify their costs, is surely ignoring the fact that this is an accountant's or quantity surveyor's job, not an organbuilder's. I have certainly done my share of estimating and costing of projects as large or larger than this, but not with a firm this small, of whose wider accounting procedures (such as calculation of overheads and other on-costs) I know nothing. Even scratching the surface of that would involve much more time than I have estimated for, and be an intrusion into their business affairs which would be unacceptable to me, if not to them. The knowledge I gained could also unduly influence my view of them for other, more likely, projects, and it's just not what I'm in business to do — indeed, ploughing through that sort of thing is frankly what I got out of the business to shake off! But even if I did fulfil the brief that seems to be asked for — i.e. see what's there, see what needs doing (all hand in hand with Messrs Willis) and then sit in their office going through their estimate line by line to see if all the bits appear to be allowed for, with the (perhaps justified) hope will come to the conclusion "Yes, that all looks fine"; and even if the additional money was there to pay me for all that work on my part; then the outcome would unavoidably be some kind of professional endorsement from me, and unavoidably carry with it a responsibility way beyond that of normal advising and the insurance that goes with it. Basically, if Willis mess up, or go broke, or claim they need twice as much as they thought to finish it, then the client would reasonably come back to me with the blame, and for some kind of recompense, for something I was unwilling to take on in the first place.

So I fear that not only is it something I don't do, don't actually want to do, and in truth never said I would do; it's also something that in business terms I just can't risk doing.

Though I personally am wary of them, in organ rebuilding work there are rare occasions where competitive tendering does not seem essential and is, even more rarely, not pursued. At one end of the scale, if a project is so small that the local well-known and well-trusted organbuilder has put in a demonstrably keen price, and is unlikely to be beaten by others further afield, then why rock the boat? At the other end, if a large instrument is to be conservatively rebuilt by the firm which either built it or has for years had it in their care, and is demonstrably equipped with the resources in manpower and recent experience of similar large projects to undertake that task without risk, then again on artistic grounds there may be a weakened reason to go to tender - though I personally would discourage it. I've only ever had one such project on my own list, with a restoration of one of their own organs by our largest UK organbuilding firm who very clearly were as capable as any of doing the job and more capable than most Even then, the decision was the clients before I became involved, not mine; and I believe it was because of that lack of tendering that the Diocese insisted there should be a project monitor (i.e. me).

Let's be honest - HW&S do have some ground to make up here. Setting aside these mysteries about pipes which were once installed at AP but have been taken away to other organs - for I'm ready to accept that there is an explanation, though it's hardly usual business practice - they must also have to make out a case for being considered for further work since (a) their previous administration undertook a significantly costly amount of work here which now in very large measure requires taking down to the ground and doing again; (b) on the face of it their resources in man power and managerial experience are less than would normally be considered appropriate to a task on this scale and which has these difficult peripheral factors; and (c) there is a good deal of uneasy inherited 'baggage' in the contractor not only being uncomfortably close to the client, but having until recently combined both the over-seeing role of the client's representative - the curator - with that of contractor. I appreciate that much of this is historical accident, but the question the world out there would put would not be "Why would anyone want to question Willis's privileged position here? - but "Why are Willis's being put in a privileged position?"

I am firmly aware that it does not have to discourage or impede Willis making out a very good case for being the right people to do the job; but I do think that they absolutely unavoidably, have to make out that case, in competition with more obvious candidates; and if they get the job, have to retreat to the position of being normal contractors with contractual responsibilities, not trading on old friendships or long past connections with the Willis name which have realistically never been relevant here.

To come back (finally!) to where I started, I fully accept that none of the above is my business. The AP Trust (or whoever) will select their contractor, and impose the conditions under which any work is done. That may or may not ignore the usual conventions, and I do hope that whatever is done - if anything is done - has every success. But what is my business is whether I want to risk getting in beyond the point with which I can feel happy, or the point that I ever would elsewhere, with a project in relation to which I might wrongly be seen by my client base (the petty, gossiping and very small world of organs) as having much more influence or involvement than I truly have.

I do hope you appreciate all that. I wandered into this innocently but it seems clear to me that what I would see as necessary is not what the APOA or APCT are looking for in this role - they have every right to take that view, and so I don’t think they should be saddled with me. There are, after all, other people around who may be less uneasy about it all, and the Association of Independent Organ Advisors would, I am sure, be happy to send you their list. So I must back out, but I am sorry that your programme has briefly been delayed by my soul-searching.

With best wishes,,

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Ian Bell.