Sub-questions

Are changes considered in the context of the programme as a whole?

Who has what authority to agree changes (cost, time and quality)?

Are changes in the overall scope of the programme responding to new influences or opportunities, or resulting from performance concerns?

Essential evidence

Record of changes to definition of the programme (for example, changes in scheme design, changing requirements or objectives), and accumulated cost and value-for-money implications.

Change control - examples from our studies

Our 2018 report The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA): progress with reducing risk at Sellafield included our concerns about the baseline used for performance measurement. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and Sellafield Limited track how their major projects are performing against cost and schedule compared with a baseline set in 2014. Each year, Sellafield Limited introduces a series of change controls that update part of the 2014 baseline, and every year it produces a detailed plan of work for the next three years. We were concerned about the viability of measuring performance against this baseline because:

• the baseline was set under a previous management model, where it was in an involved party's interest to negotiate larger budgets and longer schedules;

• the appetite for risk had since changed and meant that project managers had incentives to find savings that they would have not otherwise been able to; and

• the NDA changed its approach to assuring cost estimates halfway through the process of setting the baseline.

Our 2017 Update on the Thameslink Programme covered the Department for Transport's actions to deal with changes in the latter stages of this programme. Earlier in the programme, when developing detailed designs, Network Rail had found that conditions were not as expected, requiring design changes, additional work and acceleration of other works to keep to schedule. Inefficiencies resulted because its processes were not set up to deal with the volume of design change needed. Network Rail subsequently improved its financial and cost control of the programme, introduced measures to improve the way it managed design changes and used more sophisticated cost forecasting techniques.

Other relevant reports

Investigation into the Department for Transport's decision to cancel three rail electrification projects (paragraphs 4 and 5)

Rolling out smart meters (paragraph 15)

E20: renewing the Eastenders set (paragraph 14)