Due to the complexity and scale of delivering public services, central government's high risk projects are often large, innovative and involve a diverse set of stakeholders. They include major IT enabled business change programmes, defence equipment procurements, and construction projects. Many of these projects are risky and often fail to deliver to planned time, cost and quality. There are no figures for government's financial commitment across all high risk projects. The Office of Government Commerce (OGC) estimates that the 42 projects4 included in the MPP equate to £200 billion of committed or forecast total investment with £10.5 billion of current annual expenditure5.
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4 Number correct as at February 2010.
5 The centre of government does not know the total financial commitment that the MPP represents but the £200 billion estimate is likely to be inaccurate. Our analysis of MPP data indicates that project costs are treated inconsistently.