2.1 Stakeholders are all those with an interest or stake in the delivery of the project. The number and range of stakeholders will vary according to the stage which the project has reached, and the importance individual stakeholders will vary depending on the stage of a project. For example, the focus for some stakeholders will be pre-contract award issues, whilst others will be primarily interested in practical service delivery aspects. It is important to identify the stakeholders that will own or champion the project in various forums. The list of stakeholders and their roles should be kept current throughout the life of the project. Where the number of stakeholders is high they should be controlled where possible by getting the groups to agree at the outset on a limited number of focal points who would then have responsibility for delivering coordinated and collective positions. It is vital that the wider stakeholders are clear as to their focal points and provide an appropriate mandate. Stakeholder focal points must have the competence, authority and resources to carry out their agreed and defined roles. It is particularly important that they understand the commitment and are prepared to devote sufficient energy and time to the project.
2.2 Seen from the public sector side, the main functions which stakeholders represent are given below. Identifying who within the Authority has these roles will help to determine the project stakeholders.
• Corporate or organisational management of the project. These stakeholders include the sponsor for the project and those with responsibility to articulate the requirement, set the affordability range and agree the value for money criteria. At a higher level this involves considering the project as part of balance of investment and/or programme decisions. It is important that corporate management stakeholders ensure the correct "space" for the project, e.g. by examining the interfaces or conflicts with other projects within a broader programme to determine the right and sustainable scope and boundaries of the project;
• Corporate policy direction, which translates central policy in a departmental or local authority context into project constraints, and includes the formal project approval process. This function will include: procurement policy, quality standards and standardisation, interoperability, security, human resources, and information management controls;
• End-users, whose primary concern is that the delivered project meets the requirement in day to day conditions and delivers the desired outcomes and benefits;
• Owner or champion of the project (termed Senior Responsible Owner in OGC terminology), representing the project's interests outside the project management structure, e.g. during procurement in the approval process, and acting as an advocate for the project in securing prioritisation and maintaining adequate resources for the project;
• Leadership of the project delivery team;
• Leadership of the project delivery team;
• Other stakeholders at various times include:
• The supply side - i.e. the relevant private sector contracting market;
• Human resources provision and continuity;
• Audit evaluation of the benefits delivery;
• The Contractor (probably only from the end of the competitive procurement phase - i.e. after announcement of the preferred bidder) and its shareholders and subcontractors, who will have the main contractual responsibility for delivery of the requirement to price and budget; and
• Third Party Funders (if any), for example during the preferred bidder stage of a PFI project.
2.3 Most stakeholders will have interests outside the project and they will not be effective in supporting the project's delivery unless they are accurately and currently informed about the progress a project is making and consulted on the challenges it is facing. One of the aims of project governance is to build a common sense of ownership of the project, for example by informing and listening, and creating an environment of trust between the dedicated project delivery team and the wider stakeholder community.