2.7 The Board reports progress on implementing the Strategy to the Public Expenditure Committee (Efficiency and Reform), a ministerial committee jointly chaired by the Minister for the Cabinet Office and the Chief Secretary to HM Treasury.
2.8 The Major Projects Authority (the Authority) plays an essential role in ensuring departments comply with the Strategy and deliver projects to time and budget. The Government set up the Authority on 1 April 2011 to scrutinise plans, ensure accountability and inform the Treasury's decisions on whether to approve large-scale projects funded and delivered by central government. The Authority has three main activities relating to the Strategy:
• Operating the ICT spending controls. The Authority approves all ICT spending by central government above £5 million. It plans to use the new database of ICT assets and services, known as ASK ICT, which lists 25 departments and agencies' software and ICT systems, to make sure that organisations share and reuse technical solutions where possible.
• Providing assurance on two projects from the Strategy: the Public Services Network, a private sector supplied, secure networks, and the G-Cloud Programme, which has two components. First, data centre consolidation which will increase sharing and reduce unused capacity in facilities to house computer, telecommunications and storage systems. Second, cloud computing and an applications store will provide online ICT services, such as software and data storage, to government organisations on-demand, and on a pay-as-you-use basis, through the Internet.
• Overseeing around 200 major projects being managed across government, many of which have ICT systems within them.
2.9 The Authority is also addressing the Committee of Public Accounts concerns about the high turnover of senior responsible owners (SROs) and their lack of experience and accountability for the projects. The Authority has identified and engaged with all SROs of projects in the Government's major projects portfolio and will monitor whether they remain in post until a suitable break point in their project. The Authority will address SRO capability issues by establishing the Major Projects Leadership Academy.