Ernst & Young's point man on the Metronet administration has been put under the spotlight by government transport watchdogs.
Within the last few hours Alan Bloom was subjected to an avalanche of tough questioning by the Commons' Transport Committee.
He disclosed that without backing from Metronet's bankers, the troubled Underground maintainer was costing '£13m a week' to run.
The assembly grilled Metronet's former chairman Graham Pimlott on the 'serious black hole in [its] finances' and London Underground's managing director Tim O'Toole before turning their attentions to Bloom.
O'Toole gave a tacit criticism of the finance function at Metronet. He said that LU had found it difficult to gauge the situation at Metronet after bringing in outside auditors to probe the company in 2006, because the beleaguered company 'did not know what the numbers were' itself.
In the face of intense scrutiny from the panel, Bloom refused to disclose information relating to the value that had been put on the ailing company by advisers Rothschild. 'It's very confidential, he said.
When asked if he could put a back-of envelope figure on the cost of Metronet's failure for London taxpayers, Bloom said: 'No.'
The £13m figure excludes the debt on work that Metronet is yet to carry out, meaning further costs for its prospective new owners at Transport for London. On the level of debt relating to work pending O'Toole added: 'We're struggling with that. Our source of info is Metronet and we've learnt not to rely on that.'
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