2.33 The Contributions Agency project team encountered several difficulties in managing the procurement of the project on behalf of other agencies and the Department's headquarters. In our view, these were principally:
a) addressing the concerns of other agencies which, although represented on the Project Board, saw the project as being owned by the Contributions Agency and as representing a loss of control over their accommodation and operations;
b) collecting current and projected staff numbers on a consistent basis;
c) identifying and responding to the differing accommodation requirements of each agency; and
d) obtaining information in certain key areas about buildings that were to be retained in the redeveloped estate.
The Agency told us in the course of our investigation that they considered that only the fourth of these points (obtaining information about retained buildings) materially increased the time taken to complete the project.