Q81 Stephen Barclay: Although MOD said it would be some time before it moved to the new model, because of the existing two-year postings of service personnel.
David Pitchford: We've got a cunning plan about that.
Q82 Chair: Share it with us.
David Pitchford: It is to have different sorts of models, not just one. Our thinking is that we will work with MOD to build a flexible model for an SRO. We have had success. My deputy Steve Mitchell, behind me, has had great success. We have got MOD to reappoint an SRO for four years not for the two-year promotional settlement.
Q83 Chair: Not doing aircraft carriers by any chance, is he?
David Pitchford: I probably can't answer that, Madam Chair. In relation to the IAAPs I have probably said enough, have I not? In relation to the rest, in terms of Starting Gate, one of the things you will see in the crossover to the reform plan is that there is much more emphasis on delivering Starting Gate in relation to new projects as part of the reform plan. There are other elements in there that will help us do that. Starting Gate has been very useful but it has not been well applied by Departments.
We have talked about this before: there are some situations where these major projects are started and out of the stables before Starting Gate. There we have had to apply a variation on a theme. I think we have done reasonably well there. Are you going to ask me to put a percentage on these?
Q84 Meg Hillier: I was just going to ask exactly that question. How did you guess?
David Pitchford: I did an exam at university that offered a chance to self-assess. So I gave myself 100 to see what would happen. I got 100. So I might do that.
Q85 Meg Hillier: Not a bad grade. We won't expect 110.
David Pitchford: I think 85% in terms of the GMPP; about 60% in relation to IAAP; 60%) in relation to the Starting Gate. In relation to-I can't read this-
Sharon White: Escalation.
David Pitchford: Escalation, yes. In relation to escalation, I think we have got a good story there, because it has never been done before, and we have done it in three cases that have been successful. It is not that we are celebrating in any way. We are not celebrating that we have closed down projects. What we are celebrating is that at last we have a process by which you can do so, if it is necessary. That is why I think we have a reasonably high score there. I would go for 75%o to 80%o there. Can you help me again, Sharon?
Sharon White: "Additional assurance and direct involvement where projects are causing concern, including the provision of commercial and operational support."
David Pitchford: That is a work in progress, so I would go for 60%o there. If you look at where we were when we started, we were about 50%o behind into the negative, so we have come a long way in relation to that. If you add the impact of the Major Projects Leadership Academy into that space, I am sure it will be three to five years before we get serious traction there. When it does come, the power of it will be absolutely outstanding. So I think that that is a reasonable start. I accept that it is only a start. We have been going a year, and in the next two years we are going to introduce two more pillars to the MPA. I could tell you about those briefly, or I could tell you about them next time, whichever you prefer.
Q86 Chair: Tell us about them.
David Pitch ford: We have established the portfolio in the GMPP. To educate and expose the leaders of those projects to world-class techniques, we have set up the academy. We have had a terrific response to that. In the second cohort there will be 37, so we will train about 66 people in the first year and we will elevate that to 90 or so a year. By the time we are three years in, we will be up there with 300 people who have been seriously exposed to much better practice. At the same time, we have set up a thing called the civil service project leaders network, in which all the SROs and all the project directors from the portfolio come together in an interaction that is designed to start to breed cross-fertilisation, exchanging information and ideas but also support. The two new elements that build on that are, firstly, the operating environment. Very briefly, this is a notion about looking at major projects of the nature that we have in a different way, namely that to be effective in doing them you have to build a temporary organisation to build them successfully, and you need to do that at the start. You need a configuration within which there is a whole range of capabilities and work streams that enable you to build on these projects from the outset. It means the application of genuine portfolio management within Departments, and it means structuring Departments so that the operations are different. It comes to the SRO and the project director, and the notion that we are applying to this piece of thinking is more that the SRO, as the chief executive of the project-in other words, the last point of accountability to the accounting officer-does not necessarily have to be full time but has to be the last point of control and the person who builds the temporary organisation and manages upwards. The project director is more like the chief operating officer who manages the day-to-day operation and the decisions flow downwards to keep the project going. That is the thrust of that.
The fourth pillar is a thing called achievements and learning. It is, for the first time, to build a new dimension within which there are a whole range of learnings built on some of the outcomes of the academy and some of the others that we would build-starting with, after the Olympics, a new way of accessing the Olympic Delivery Authority legacy learnings-and mould those into the work that we have brought together. Currently, one of the problems with this understanding of being able to find out where things have gone on before, how well they have been done, why and why not is that it is a major piece of research to try to get it done. We are looking at a new dimension where you can access that quite simply. I will explain more about it later; I am running out of time and words.
Q87 Stephen Barclay: Clearly, the difficulty with skills is something we have highlighted repeatedly over many years, so it is very welcome that it is being looked at. In terms of benchmarking our starting point, how many current Permanent Secretaries or SROs in operational Departments would not have a minimum of two years' operational commercial experience?
David Pitchford: I would only be able to respond to that by perception, and to be fair to them I probably should not. A fairer way to respond would be to say that up until two years ago, it may be true that a lot of them were oriented towards policy without too much focus on delivery. I think a whole range of things has changed through that. Sharon's point about the reform plan is fundamentally important. The MPA has had a terrific response from every Permanent Secretary about this delivery responsibility.
Q88 Stephen Barclay: But 70% of what the civil service does is operational, as of today. If 70% of what the civil service does is operational, it would be pretty strange to say, "The people we put in charge of operational programmes do not have at least two years' experience." Yet the Civil Service White Paper trumpets it as a major change that we will require all Permanent Secretaries to have two years' experience. I was quite surprised that we were setting the benchmark so low, which prompted the question: how many of our Permanent Secretaries today-
Chair: Stephen, I think that is honestly more a question for Bob Kerslake.
Q89 Stephen Barclay: Surely that goes to what we are training the people in the academy for, doesn't it?
David Pitchford: Hand the majority of Permanent Secretaries to the academy for a full-day work swap to introduce them to those concepts, so it is being aligned.
Stephen Barclay: Does that go to figure 3? We have 6, 7 and 8, which are all to do with that.
Jackie Doyle-Price: My concern has always been-
Stephen Barclay: Sorry to cut across, Jackie, but I thought that understanding is core to working with Departments to build capabilities in projects and programme management. Again, one of the key risks for you is if people running these high-risk programmes do not have any commercial or operational experience. I would have thought that is one of the first things you are looking at.
Chair: Jackie, put it another way.
Q90 Jackie Doyle-Price: My concern has always been that the machinery and culture of Whitehall puts too much priority on policy and not enough on operational delivery, which is why we are seeing this over and over again. I am seeing positive signs that that is changing, but my concern is that that is not enough. The machinery is not getting a strong enough message from the leadership that the world is changing. What more can we do to do that? Obviously, we have the academy, which is great, but it is going to take a while to get a sufficient critical mass of senior managers through to start delivering the change. You outlined earlier that there are some Departments that are still not getting with the programme, if I can put it that way. Again, we come back to this issue of leadership. What more can we do to give that message, "Come on guys, you have to embrace these disciplines"?
David Pitchford: Perhaps I can offer you some joy in relation to that, because the Permanent Secretaries themselves, in terms of the outcomes that they have already perceived and what they want out of the major projects leadership academy, have mandated of their own volition that, after two years from March of this year, they will no longer appoint people to be SRO unless they have been through the academy. So they are giving it genuine traction. Many of them have spent the day at the academy learning about it and becoming involved. As a result, there is quite a lot of interest. They have formed a group within their Wednesday morning group to keep driving this, so there is take-up on it. Even in the two years that I have been here-when I first arrived, you were an odd person if you do what I do-it has become common knowledge.
The most useful graph is on page 22. One of things that is bringing it home to people is that, if you look at the DECC obligation for delivery in relation to this chart-I have just done the capability review for DECC with support from the MPA-an obligation that is second only to the MOD, with an operational and delivery capability probably smaller than every other Department, the Permanent Secretary of the Department is right on to this. She is having the MPA and others help her to build the capability to acquire people in order to prioritise a portfolio approach for her Department to manage that commitment, which should be strongly applauded.