Major Projects Authority faces significant challenge to reform delivery, say MPs

The Major Projects Authority (MPA) must be given more formal powers by government to support its project delivery reforms if it is to continue to drive efficiency across central government’s growing project portfolio.

Antony Oliver
20 August 2014

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According to a new report by the powerful Public Accounts Committee (PAC), while the MPA’s work to date has significantly improved the performance of government major projects, it still faced “significant challenges” as it continued to drive delivery improvement not least as the size of its infrastructure project portfolio grew. 

“There are still serious weaknesses in government's project delivery capability and its portfolio of projects is rapidly increasing in size,” says the PAC report written following a interview with MPA chief executive John Manzoni in July. 

“This lack of formal powers reduces the influence of the MPA with the Treasury and with departments, limiting its ability to drive improvements in project management.” PAC report.

“The MPA is unlikely to achieve a systemic improvement in project management without stronger, more formal mechanisms for driving change,” the report added pointing out that at present the Treasury was under no formal obligation to follow MPA recommendations. 

“The MPA often has to rely on personal credibility and informal influence, rather than having formal mechanisms, to get its voice heard in its work with departments,” the PAC said. “This lack of formal powers reduces the influence of the MPA with the Treasury and with departments, limiting its ability to drive improvements in project management.”

It added: “Where ministers or officials reject MPA recommendations, there should be a formal and transparent process in place to document this.”

The MPA was established in March 2011 as a partnership between the Cabinet Office and HM Treasury with a Prime Ministerial mandate to improve project delivery across government through robust assurance measures. 

Since then the MPA has developed a range of interventions to give assurance over government major projects and to support HM Treasury approval and funding decisions. 

It has also established the Major Projects Leadership Academy to train senior project leaders in the civil service. 

In September 2013, the Government Major Projects portfolio consisted of 199 major projects covering a wide range of activities, from transforming how departments do their work to building ships and motorways. 

These projects represent a considerable and rising cost to the taxpayer and as the MPA reported in May, the whole-life cost of these projects was £488bn, an increase of some £134 billion on the previous year.

 “A lack of robust planning in the concept, design and business case stages of projects has been a serious issue with government major projects for many years and exacerbates problems during project implementation”. PAC report.

Despite the scale of this activity, the PAC highlighted that government still continued to manage the work as a series of individual projects rather than a portfolio and highlighted that “nobody in central government is responsible for overseeing projects at a strategic whole-of-government level.

Much more could be done, it said, by Treasury to assess and manage the increased level of risk this exposes government to, including to identify areas where too many projects are underway and departments may be struggling to cope.

The PAC also highlighted that “a lack of robust planning in the concept, design and business case stages of projects has been a serious issue with government major projects for many years and exacerbates problems during project implementation”.

In particular it flagged IT projects in the Department of Health as good examples of where the effects of past poor planning were still felt. 

It recommended that the MPA should work closely with departments to improve performance, particularly departments with “challenging, high-risk portfolios of major projects, such as the Department of Health and Ministry of Defence”.

Details of the report and its recommendations can be found here