3.11 Programme teams maintain risk registers for each programme to record the main risks to successful delivery. Programmes often live with high risk. Across the programmes we examined, 41% of the main risks identified by programme delivery teams had a 'high' or 'very high' probability of occurring, even after proposed mitigations. Risks relating to the availability of sufficient qualified and experienced staff (see Part Four) were among the highest risks for more than half of the programmes we examined.24
3.12 The Department is attempting to manage these risks in a number of ways. For instance, DE&S has improved its project controls, including gathering enhanced data on supplier performance and risks across individual programmes and portfolios. It also monitors supply chain capacity, performance and risk tolerance, as well as suppliers' exposure to market risks and opportunities. This work is feeding into the Department's Strategic Partnering Programme (paragraph 3.17).
3.13 One way to ensure that the supplier is performing in line with milestones and is, therefore, only being paid for work done, is the programme management technique known as Earned Value Management (EVM). In 2015, we reported that DE&S was failing to make use of the technique even though it had been mandated since the 1990s.25 During our current work, we found that EVM is now being adopted widely on the programmes we examined.
3.14 Partly in response to the problems described above, from April 2019, the Department introduced a new approach to the approval of programmes to better identify risks and mitigate actions at an early stage of the programme. A Strategic Outline Case is produced to provide more assurance that the critical success factors, such as the level of complexity and the main risks, are being considered at an early stage of the programme. The benefits of this approach will only become apparent over time. In late 2020, the Department conducted a review of how the process had worked in its early days and identified a need to clarify and simplify the process in order to reduce the demands on programme resources.
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24 Our analysis of programme risks included 17 programmes which reported in March 2021 and two programmes which reported in December 2020. Of the two, the first was the Warrior armoured vehicle programme, which ceased reporting following its cancellation (see Figure 8), and the second was a programme which subsequently classified its risk reporting. A further programme's risk reporting remained classified over both reporting periods.
25 Comptroller and Auditor General, Reforming defence acquisition, Session 2014-15, HC 946, National Audit Office, February 2015.