A DAMNING report into the spiralling cost of the landmark V&A museum in Dundee has found it had "little prospect" of ever being built for its original budget.

A review carried out by John McClelland, a procurement expert and former chairman of Rangers Football Club, into the construction and planning of the waterfront development has found a series of misjudgements led to the cost of the building rising from an initial £27 million to more than £80m.

The McClelland report says that the project's planners chose an ambitious and complex "elite" design by Kengo Kuma but planned to build it with an initially inadequate budget - the biggest single cause for the startling rise in cost is the original understatement of its original price tag.

Scottish Labour has called for "full disclosure" into what they have called a "debacle".

Claire Baker MSP, its culture spokeswoman, said the Education and Culture Committee of the Scottish Parliament should hold an inquiry into the affair.

The report, which will now be considered by Dundee City Council's policy and resources committee, found that "the international benchmarking approach which formed the basis of the original project cost estimates was not sufficiently robust".

It demanded that Dundee City Council now appoint a full-time project manager for the V&A with full responsibility for delivering the project on schedule and on budget.

The report revealed there has not been a full-time, dedicated project and cost manager for the scheme.

Mr McClelland also called for an urgent review of the costs of the building's £4.8m furniture, fittings and equipment, which were priced in 2010.

The report said that the projects original cost estimates proved to be inaccurate and unrealistic.

McClelland wrote: "In my opinion this project had, from the beginning, little prospect of being delivered for the original budget due to an accumulation of factors that mitigated against that outcome being achieved."

A key factor in the cost was the setting of its price in 2010 at a base of £4,500 per square metre (PSM) which was "deliberately set at a middle of the range value with the intent of having a building of high quality but not an elite structure".

However after the panel chose Kuma's ambitious design,with much of it hanging over the water, this below-average estimate proved to be substantially off-target.

The figure for cost per square metre was based on 10 similar buildings around the world including Tate Modern in London and the Riverside in Glasgow, the cost of which produced an average cost of £4,830psm.

McClelland wrote: "It is not clear how the selected cost of £4,500psm would have been able to fully cope with the intent to have the building constructed fully or partially offshore."

The winning proposal was over the planned budget from the start, coming in at £32,529m.

Its gross inside area of 6,712 square metres also exceeded the competition brief requirement by 12 per cent.

The report said: "There was a mismatch between the lower aspirations for the building’s design on which the £27m budget was based and the elite level of the design implied in the competition brief and eventually selected by the panel."

The report added: "There has been an under-investment in skilled and experienced in-house technical and project management resources for this project."

Councillor Ken Guild, convener of the policy and resources committee, said: “I would like to thank John McClelland for his thorough review into the V&A Museum of Design Dundee construction project and his recommendations to help us take this forward.

"This comprehensive review shows us where lessons need to be learned and I am happy to accept the recommendations.

"I am sure that these can be implemented quickly and that frequent updates can be brought before councillors."