Project Governance: From Data to Recommendations to Action or Inaction.

Research conducted by:

Professor Terry Williams and Hang Vo

Hull University

Published: 2016

The full PMI White Paper is available here.

Executive Summary

The core function of the UK Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA) is to ensure complex, high-risk government major projects and programmes are delivered efficiently and effectively, and to improve their performance over time. A key part of the work of the IPA is assurance; this is often mandated as part of the overall HM Treasury business case approvals process but is also designed to provide ‘support and constructive challenge to Senior Responsible Owners’.

There is a substantial body of literature on project governance and the use of independent project assurance reviews; in this white-paper, we seek to improve the understanding of data generated from assurance reviews. Using data captured from the IPA’s database of assurance review recommendations, we seek to understand the enactment of governance through advancing our understanding of how recommendations are framed, the use of data, and the action (or inaction) taken in response.

Whilst part of this study is limited to a small subset of the Government Major Projects Portfolio (GMPP), it provides a useful insight into current assurance process of the UK government as well as makes some suggestions for future improvement (see Table 1). The study is an initial piece of work studying the UK Government database of reviews of major projects and the report makes proposals for further study.