The trick to secure funding for public sector projects is to demonstrate that they are affordable. In Civil Service terms this translates as there being "budget capacity". There is a strategically motivated perverse incentive to under-estimate costs to secure funding which is compounded by the optimism bias endemic in the public sector. Given that projects are seldom cancelled once they are underway the result is that projects are delayed or de-scoped or that progressively more financial pain is felt by other projects as the department tries to juggle its unaffordable portfolio.10 Neither solution is efficient or effective.
Leaders, whether senior professionals, civil servants or politicians, not only take the key decisions to initiate and commit to projects, but also create the conditions for success or failure. Without certainty of funding provision or clarity about the priority of the project within the overall portfolio, project teams will not have a firm basis to deliver the project.11
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10 Carrier Strike (HC 1092, 2010-12), Successive Ministry of Defence Major Projects Reports (e.g. HC 1520-I, 2010-12).
11 Carrier Strike (HC 1092, 2010-12).