This week the UK newspapers have been full of a report from a parliamentary investigation into the abject failure of yet another government project. The FiReControl project was commissioned in 2004. The objective was to consolidate 46 local fire control centres that co-ordinate fire and rescue services in the UK to nine regional centres linked by a national IT system.
Seven years and half a billion pounds later all the UK has to show for the project are nine empty buildings. (Although to be fair the London centre will be used soon) The national IT system was simply not delivered. What went wrong? The report highlighted a number of areas that anyone with a modicum of knowledge of project best practices such as PRINCE2 or the PMI could have spotted during the project.
Firstly the report highlighted a complete lack of accountability and responsibility amongst the management team. This will come as no surprise to those of us who have worked on large public projects. Endemic in many of these projects are large governance committees and complicated organizational structures which make it very difficult to work out who is accountable. This is completely against best practices such as PRINCE2 (which is supposed to be the government’s preferred method for project delivery) that clearly state that one individual should be recognised as having ultimate accountability for the project.
Another highlighted problem was the inability of the project team to work with the 46 local areas. These areas would have to transfer their operational capabilities to the nine regional controls and also work with them post-project. They were obviously important stakeholders. There are some very good ideas on how to work with such stakeholders in PRINCE2’s Organization theme. (Have a read of my old blog Prince2 in Practice – Engaging Senior Management in Projects for a synopsis of how the Organization theme works)
In a PRINCE2 project the local areas could have been given the Senior User role on the main decision making body the Project Board. Because there were so many of them a “local centre user committee” could have been set up to represent their needs which would then send a number of representatives to the Project Board meeting to ensure major decisions took account of their interests. The committee could have helped to specify the project’s products and carry out quality control. So how did the project team actually handle the local centres? Yes you’ve guessed it – they completely ignored their views and didn’t involve them in any decisions on the design of the regional centres and the IT system!
The management of third party contractors and consultants was another problem area highlighted by the report. The public projects I have been involved in always seem to have an over-reliance on consultants. PA Consulting were used on the project and came under fire (excuse the pun!) In my opinion consultants are unfairly blamed. Not satisfied with their complex and obscure governance structure that prevents anyone being blamed for the failure of the project, those in charge of public projects also recruit potential scapegoats in case of project failure. As is being proven right now, if the project fails, those managing the project can say – oh we were just following the consultant’s advice. The key to project success is someone taking responsibility for the project, someone who is willing to stand up and be counted for the success or failure of the project.
A software supplier called Cassidian was awarded the contract for the IT system. The investigation highlighted the fact that they had no direct experience of the area. Time and again the public sector seem to go through onerous procurement procedures only to end up with the wrong supplier. In the PRINCE2 model the Senior Users should be involved with specifying the requirements of the deliverables and choosing suppliers. As I have already discussed the local centres should have been taking on this role and giving input into the specification for the system. Of course they were not, so there seems little hope of a product that even if it had been delivered, would have been fit for purpose.
What has always struck me in public projects is the poor attitude of suppliers involved with delivering public services. It is almost as if, knowing that they have been chosen using a ridiculously over complicated procurement process, they realise the public body wouldn’t want to repeat the process and so won’t curtail their contract. They also know that most public bodies won’t take action against poor delivery. One of the suppliers I was dealing with on a local government project was late in their delivery (by over three months) I remember trying to get the Project Board to sanction legal action against the contractor to recover penalty clauses without any success.
I have never worked with Cassidian, so I wouldn’t want to tar them with the same brush as the awful contractors I had to muddle through with on the local government project. But the parliamentary report highlights the poor management the government department responsible for the project had over the software supplier. No milestones were set in place that might have given the department early warning of late delivery. A poor contract was put in place that paid the supplier late – causing a lot of tension.
Better project governance, stakeholder management and third party contractor management seem to be the three keys that might have brought success to this project. I would be interested to hear any comments from anyone directly involved in this project or other public projects on whether you agree or disagree with my conclusions.
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