Sub-questions

Does the programme leadership receive regular and timely reports including information on:

• progress and milestone achievements against plan?

• reports on individual work packages/streams?

• resources and funding used to date (and compared with expectation and progress)?

• confidence in forward plan/updated plan from team and suppliers?

What parameters have been set around the planned performance/delivery of the programme as acceptable?

Is there evidence that action has been taken to address problems?

Does the evidence indicate that the programme is delivering/on track to deliver its objectives and intended benefits?

Is there systematic reporting against clear criteria that reduces reliance on individual judgements?

Are cost and delivery indicators integrated, or at least aligned, to provide an overall value measure?

Essential evidence

Programme dashboard or other reporting on progress of work packages.

Key metrics used to measure progress.

Performance management - examples from our studies

Our 2018 report The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA): progress with reducing risk at Sellafield (see Q14) found improved performance in delivering major projects to reduce risk and high hazard. However, evaluating overall performance at Sellafield was difficult due to a range of factors, including projects cancelled after significant spending had occurred, new strategies to perform the work and rescheduling of work planned. The complexity, uncertainty and scale of the task, and the bespoke nature of many of the required solutions, meant it was inherently difficult to measure and benchmark the NDA's progress, but the NDA could have done more to clarify progress, for instance, reviewing its baseline plan, presenting sunk costs more clearly and reconciling annual performance metrics with long‑term milestones.

Our 2018 report Low carbon heating of homes and businesses and the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) concluded that there was not the evidence to determine whether the programme was on track to achieve its aim of encouraging a switch from fossil fuel to renewable and low-carbon heating systems in homes and businesses. The RHI was a novel approach to making progress against the UK's international energy obligations and identify longer‑term options for reducing carbon emissions. The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) showed flexibility in rolling out the scheme, adjusting scheme objectives to respond to a changing strategy and over-optimistic initial planning assumptions, and it learnt lessons for the future. However, BEIS had not set specific goals, established a monitoring plan or defined clear criteria for making adjustments to the programme in support of the objective of developing the supply chain for the future. It did not have a reliable estimate of the amount it had overpaid to participants that had not complied with the regulations, nor the impact of participants gaming them, which could accumulate to reduce the scheme's value significantly. We therefore concluded that the scheme had not achieved value for money.

Other relevant reports

Progress delivering the 'One Mission, One Bank' strategy (paragraphs 10 and 11)

Rolling out smart meters (paragraph 23)

E20: renewing the Eastenders set (paragraph 9)