1 It is not possible to estimate with any degree of certainty how much of the government's business is delivered through projects. The Government Major Projects Portfolio (the Portfolio), which includes central government's biggest and riskiest projects, had an estimated whole-life value of £511 billion in June 2015. This report focuses mainly on those projects. Other bodies are involved in the delivery of projects for government. Quantifying public sector project delivery outside the Portfolio is not possible, but:
• capital spend estimates suggest there may be nearly twice as much spend on capital projects outside the Portfolio, in 2015-16, including all devolved and some local government spend, that of arm's-length bodies,1 and departmental spend on projects that are not included in the Portfolio; and
• the national infrastructure plan in July 2015 included infrastructure projects costing an estimated £411 billion from 2015-16, of which 36% by value are either taxpayer-funded or have mixed private/public funding, some of which are not included in the Portfolio.
2 Government projects play a crucial role in delivering strategic objectives such as defence capability, new infrastructure and improving the efficiency of public services. Traditionally, infrastructure projects attract much attention, but projects to transform or change the way that public services are delivered or accessed are of increasing importance. For example, 95 out of 149 projects in the Portfolio in June 2015 were transformation, ICT or service delivery projects.
3 There are a number of challenges in delivering government projects including:
• timescales, which can arise either from being particularly long or being overly ambitious. Four of the projects in the Portfolio are expected to take more than 30 years, making it difficult to manage continuity and making them more likely to be subject to external changes in their lifetime. Conversely, transformation projects can suffer from setting short deadlines given the outcomes they are trying to achieve, as shown in the early history of Universal Credit;
• the size of individual programmes: for example, Crossrail is reputed to be the largest infrastructure project currently under construction in Europe;
• the ambition and complexity of projects that aim to achieve multiple policy objectives and that cross departmental boundaries; and
• the volume of projects to be delivered by individual departments and collectively by government: for example, 71% of the projects in the Portfolio are to be delivered by 2019-20.
4 Given the scale, importance and complexity of government projects, successful delivery is key to providing value for money. However, the track record in delivering government projects successfully has been poor. In the last Parliament, while we reported on improvements in the way aspects of programmes in some departments were managed, we also reported regularly on project failures and on ongoing projects that were experiencing considerable difficulties. We and the Committee of Public Accounts identified a number of recurring issues across departments that were contributing to poor performance:
• an absence of portfolio management at both departmental and government level;
• lack of clear, consistent data with which to measure performance;
• poor early planning;
• lack of capacity and capability to undertake a growing number of projects; and
• a lack of clear accountability for leadership of a project.
5 Over the years, successive governments have tried to improve project delivery. These initiatives gathered pace during the last Parliament with the establishment of the Major Projects Authority (the Authority; now the Infrastructure and Projects Authority). This briefing gives an overview of:
• key trends in the performance of project delivery in government;
• progress that central bodies and departments have made in addressing the underlying issues listed in paragraph 4; and
• key challenges in improving project delivery in this parliament.
___________________________________________________________________________
1 An arm's-length body is an organisation that delivers a public service, is not a ministerial government department and which operates to a greater or lesser extent at a distance from ministers. The term can include non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs), executive agencies, non-ministerial departments, public corporations, NHS bodies and inspectorates.