Memorandum submitted by Office of Government
Commerce
Follow up to evidence session on 17 May
Q93-95 In the Treasury's 2005 departmental
report, OGG had a target of ensuring a 70% success rate in IT-enabled
projects being on time, on budget and fit for purpose. In your
latest annual report, you reported slippage in 2005, and have
not reported progress in 2006. What progress have you made?
[2]
Thank you for the clarification of the sub-Committee's
request for further evidence in relation to the above question
quoted in Q93 to 95 of the transcript.
When we first came to measure progress against
the 70% success rate target the data suggested that our achievement
was in excess of 90%, In the light of this very high figure I
have taken steps to validate this, drawing on other data available
to me.
To provide a more complete picture, I am relying
on the statistics we derive from Gateway reviews and my own reporting
on Mission Critical projects to identify Government's progress
in improving delivery. Gateway reviews in particular represent
a gold standard, with independent expert reviewers analysing programmes
using a well-tested process. I therefore base my decisions on
the other more accurate determinations of project success, which
were also reflected in the National Audit Office's own examination
of IT projects in November 2004. For example, the evidence we
currently have from the Gateway process shows, over the last two
years, a 25% improvement in overall RAG status for IT projects
that have undertaken more than one Gateway review.
A further breakdown of the analysis shows that
for the totality of projects, considerable success has been achieved
in improving their performance. But closer examination shows that
most of the improvement has taken place in high and lower risk
projects whilst the same success has not been reflected in Mission
Critical Projects. It is clear that they have a complexity and
scale which require support of a different nature than just the
Gateway process. Hence, OGC's focus has now moved towards engaging
directly with the Key Programmes regardless of whether they are
IT, construction or business change. We are now in the process
of developing measures to assess progress in improving success
in the Key Programmes—including exploring the potential
use of proven, more robust techniques.
I trust that this clarification is helpful to
the sub-Committee.
June 2006
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