Programme Status Breakdown
Delay Distribution (Weeks)
Announced vs. Current Cost — All Schemes (£m)
Cost Escalation Forecast to 2032 — Active Schemes
A9 Dualling — 17 Years and Counting
Announced in 2008 at £3bn. Now £3.97bn at Apr 2025 prices. Only 11 of 83 miles upgraded. Contractor appointed for some sections but the full programme completion has slipped from 2025 to 2035. £261m spent on consultancy alone — without completing the road.
Ferguson Marine — A Shipyard Saga
MV Glen Sannox and Hull 802 ordered for £97m in 2015–16. Cost now exceeds £460m — a 374% overrun. Both vessels severely delayed. The nationalised shipyard has faced repeated fire alarms, funding crises, and management upheaval, making this Scotland's most embarrassing infrastructure story.
HMP Glasgow — Prison Costs Balloon
Announced at £400m. An FOI in January 2026 confirmed the total project cost has reached £998m — a 150% overrun. Kier Construction awarded the £684m construction contract in Feb 2026. Completion now expected 2028, three years after the original 2025 target.
NHS Grampian Baird/ANCHOR — £304m Cost Jump
Originally budgeted at £134m in 2020, the combined Baird Family Hospital and ANCHOR Cancer Centre in Aberdeen has ballooned to £438.6m as of February 2026 — a 227% increase. Opening date remains unconfirmed after multiple delays to contractor procurement.
A96 Dualling — Descoped, Not Delivered
Originally announced as full dualling of the Aberdeen–Inverness corridor at £2.5–5bn. Effectively abandoned in favour of a "Refined Package" of £501m–£1bn. Over £80m spent on advisory services with no road built. Ministers now present the descoping as a policy choice — critics call it a retreat.
Scottish Parliament Building — The Original Warning
Announced at £10–40m in 1999. Final cost: £414m — a 4,000%+ overrun. Completed 2004. The Fraser Inquiry found failures in procurement, project management, and political oversight. Its lessons were largely not embedded in subsequent Scottish Government major project frameworks.
| Scheme | Status | Announced | Current Est. | Variance | Delay | Detail |
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Methodology & Sources
CPD Index (0–100): CPD-C (Cost Performance) measures the proportion of schemes delivered at or near announced cost, with a severity penalty for overruns greater than 25%. CPD-D (Delivery Performance) measures the proportion of schemes free from significant delay, with a minor penalty for smaller slippages. The combined CPD score is the unweighted average. A score of 100 indicates a perfect delivery record; 0 indicates complete systemic failure.
Clock: The live clock shows the cumulative active cost overrun on 9 schemes with confirmed cost increases, compounding at a blended BCIS inflation rate of 3.8% per annum. This represents the real cost of delay to Scottish taxpayers. Completed schemes and the descoped A96 (where costs were reduced through scope reduction) are excluded.
Cost data: Announced costs are taken from original Scottish Government press releases, Infrastructure Investment Plan documentation, and parliamentary statements. Current estimated costs are drawn from Audit Scotland reports, FOI disclosures, Infrastructure Investment Plan Progress Updates (Scottish Government, Aug 2025), BBC Scotland, and the Construction Enquirer.
Delay data: Weeks of delay calculated from original target completion date versus revised target or today's date where no revised target exists. Where no completion date was ever formally set, delay is classified as TBC.
Primary sources: Audit Scotland · Transport Scotland · Scottish Gov IIP Progress Aug 2025 · HMP Glasgow FOI · BBC Scotland
Disclaimer: This tracker is an independent professional assessment prepared by QuintinQS. It is not affiliated with the Scottish Government. All figures are drawn from publicly available sources and are correct as of the date shown. Cost projections are indicative only.
CPD Index — cost cap: The cost overrun % contribution to CPD-C is capped at 50 points — schemes with overruns above 100% score the maximum on this component. This prevents extreme outliers (e.g. schemes with 200%+ overruns) from distorting the index beyond its intended range.
CPD — about this acronym: CPD stands for Continued Prolonged Delays — a deliberate reference to Northern Ireland's Central Procurement Directorate, rebranded as Construction, Procurement, Delivery — the NI Executive body whose mandate is to ensure public infrastructure is built on time and on budget. The name is intentional.