AN official report into the previous Government's sell-off of the Rosyth and Devonport dockyards reveals the deal actually cost the Government money, and that new facilities at Devonport are costing #156m more than estimated.

Between Devonport and Rosyth, some #192m of cost increases have been identified by the National Audit Office in its report to Parliament today.

Nevertheless, the NAO agrees that there could still be savings of between #56m and #178m in costs over the next 10 years.

Such figures though are estimates, and the NAO admits that they are dependent on the dockyard companies achieving target cost reductions.

Such figures are far lower than the claims of #300m to #700m worth of projected savings made when the Government took the controversial decision to concentrate the submarine work at Devonport rather than Rosyth.

The report also notes that Babcock Rosyth Defence Limited, the new owners, are forecasting 1200 redundancies, mostly among the workforce engaged on Royal Navy submarine work, by 2006.

The Ministry of Defence sold the dockyards, which carry out most of the Navy's refit and repair work, to the companies managing the yards in 1997, but because there were no outside bidders, they were sold at less than had been estimated.

The Government actually received #54.8m for the two dockyards, but at the same time it had to pay #48m to enable Babcock Rosyth to buy out part of the workforce's redundancy entitlement, and the sale costs totalled #15.7m.

That meant there was a net cash outflow from the Ministry of #9m.

At Devonport, the biggest problem has been the D154 project to upgrade the yard's facilities to deal with nuclear submarines.

Originally costed at #261m, it is now estimated at #417m, and is running 29 months behind schedule.

The increase is blamed on additional engineering costs, changes to specifications, and partly because some costs were originally excluded.

Completion date is now scheduled for January, 2002.

As the work is taking longer than forecast, Rosyth has had to take on more submarine work than originally anticipated, further delaying the claimed savings of moving the work to one yard.

Liberal Democrat defence spokesman Menzies Campbell yesterday criticised the former Tory government for locating the nuclear submarine refitting facilities in Devonport.

''The real purpose of the Government was to try to staunch the haemorrhage of support away from the Tories in the West Country. The irony is that the Tories still took a pasting and the British taxpayer has been left to pick up the bill.''