By David Williams
04 June 2010
Billions of pounds’ worth of public investment could be better safeguarded through a better-designed and compulsory performance-checking system, the government’s spending watchdog has said.
In a report released yesterday, the National Audit Office called for a centralised assurance system to oversee progress on expensive major projects, such as large-scale construction schemes and defence equipment procurement. These projects are often innovative and reliant on complex partnerships and ‘can fail to deliver to time, cost and quality,’ the report, Assurance for high-risk projects, noted.
It said effective assurance systems identify and reduce risks to the cost, timescale and quality of ongoing projects. Integrated systems are more effective than those designed and working in isolation, but Whitehall does not have a centralised mechanism. It currently spends £8.3m – less than 0.1% of the annual bill – on a variety of systems. The NAO said a well-designed, mandatory and universal system could more than justify its cost.
For example, if such a system had been in place at the Ministry of Defence and had stopped just 10% of cost over-runs, the department would have saved £500m, the report said. Across government as a whole, 42 of the biggest central government schemes costs around £10.5bn a year, with an estimated total value of £200bn.
The NAO also highlighted a possible over-reliance on consultants. Although three-quarters of people accredited to oversee high-risk schemes were civil servants, public sector workers accounted for only half of those employed on assurance reviews.
