Page 2725 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 6 June 2012
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had been allocated for the secure mental health unit had been predicated on the fact of sharing a whole number of facilities with the adult mental health unit. All of the staff facilities and obviously the kitchen facilities had been seen as a shared infrastructure cost. When those were separated, there would have been additional costs.
We then did some site selection. The former Quamby site was chosen as the secure mental health unit preferred site. That has some additional costs in terms of the site itself; it is quite difficult to build on. The costs came back at about $30 million, from memory, to build that. We only had budget approval for about, from memory, between $11 million and $15 million. I returned that money to the budget while further work was being done. That work has been done now, in terms of commissioning some advice around the level of demand and potential models and, particularly for small secure units like the one we are talking of here, which was only a 15-bed facility, some of the challenges that have come with that.
With respect to where we have got to, that work is in. We will build a new secure mental health unit. We have provided $2 million to design that facility. Once that is designed, we will allocate construction funding. At this point in time we do not have a figure on what the budget of the designed facility would be. But by allowing $2 million for design—the rough rule-of-thumb is that design constitutes about 10 per cent of your cost—we are sending a message that we would like to see a building design in the vicinity of $20 million, not $30 million or $35 million.
MR SPEAKER: A supplementary, Mr Coe.
MR COE: Chief Minister, the original completion date for the facility was September 2010. What is the rescheduled estimated completion date and can you guarantee that it will be completed on time?
MS GALLAGHER: Having just given Mr Coe the history lesson of that project, I am sure he can understand why that date has changed. Again, we often hear those opposite criticise projects when budgets are allocated and then, through their implementation, costs are exceeded. What we are doing at this time is sending the design money, and then, when that design is complete, the construction funding and the timetable will be allocated.
I should also say that forensic mental health services have been enhanced during this time. We have got court liaison services, we have got forensic community outreach services operating, and, of course, we have got services going into the Alexander Maconochie Centre and the Bimberi Youth Justice Centre. So it is not as if services are not being provided. In addition, the new adult mental health unit has a high secure area within it. Those facilities are available in the meantime.
One of the challenges for running a secure unit is the number of people whom you would expect to use a facility like that. The feedback we have got—I am happy to release the reports once they are finalised; I have not got the final reports with me—is that one of the challenges in running a small unit has been attracting staff to a unit like that where the numbers are so small. These are all matters that we have to consider in the decisions that we take about the secure unit.
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