Over the Bank Holiday weekend we saw more weight was given to the Cabinet Office’s argument that large Government IT projects don’t work. Firstly, late on Friday, the Major Projects Authority (established in March 2011) released its first annual report. Amongst the 31 schemes given a red or amber/red rating, several are IT or heavily IT-enabled projects.
Projects given a ‘red’ rating include the MoD’s Defence Core Network Services (DCNS) programme (see Atos chosen as MoD’s strategic partner) and the MoJ’s Shared Services programme (see Accenture, Steria and Savvis share MoJ deal). The report defines a ‘red’ project as “successful delivery of the project appears to be unachievable. There are major issues on project definition, schedule, budget, quality and/or benefits delivery, which at this stage do not appear to be manageable or resolvable. The project may need re-scoping and/or its overall viability reassessed”. That sounds serious. But the ‘red’ rating is downplayed elsewhere in the report highlighting that it may be that the projects are in the early stages, and/or are delivering initiatives that have no global precedent, and still have a chance to remove risks or finalise design. And it does not mean that the projects will be cancelled.
Under the ‘amber/red’ banner included are several DWP programmes (including PIPs – see Capita ‘PIP’s for central England and Wales and Atos gets bigger PIPs); Universal Credits; and the Fraud & Error Programme). But highlighting that data used to rate the projects was now 6-12 months old and things have moved on since then, the NS&I outsourcing relet, which was actually relet to Atos last week (see Sighs of relief for Atos...), was also included. Ironically, also included is the Cabinet Office’s G-Cloud programme.
Also over the weekend, the BBC has admitted to abandoning its Digital Media Initiative stating that it was badly managed and outpaced by technology. £98m has been spent with nothing to show for it. The contract to deliver DMI was originally awarded to technology company Siemens in 2008 but was taken over and relaunched by an in-house BBC team in 2010. The whole debacle can be read about here. Like the Major Projects Authority report, the experience highlights a lack of major programme management skills internally. One of the biggest changes to Government since the MPA was launched is that, now, 87% of project reviewers are civil servant. Pre-MPA, that figure stood at 45% while the rest were consultants. Training of project leaders is high on the agenda with the Major Projects Leadership Academy set up last year in partnership with Delotte and the Said Business School, University of Oxford. 90 civil servants have already joined the programme with 340 due to start in 2014. Better managed projects will be good news for Government and its suppliers.