The purchasers identified the risks of undertaking such a project a year before the contract was signed, but not all these risks were managed

2.3  The purchasers' joint procurement team made strenuous efforts to identify the risks of the project. In March 1995, seven months into the procurement stage, they compiled a comprehensive register comprising 224 risks. These covered the specific risks within the project and the wider business risks that could affect it. The register included virtually all those that could have been foreseen such as:

■  inadequately specified requirements;

■  delays in the Department 's CAPS project which would link to the Card system;

■  deterioration in service to customers, such as unacceptable queuing time at post offices; and

■  poor performance by the supplier.

2.4  However, this register did not include assessments of probability and impact, nor did it allocate risks to "owners" for management, or propose options to mitigate the risks. We found no evidence that it was then further developed into a fully-featured risk register and actively used in the project.