Our Parliamentary Engagement.
Here, we present to you our previous engagements with UK parliament. To secure research impact, we make sure to contribute to parliamentary consultation and debate on improving major project delivery.
‘The Government’s management of its major projects’.
Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC) Inquiry.
The Government’s Major Projects Portfolio (MPP) has 133 projects with a value of £423 billion, and these are only a fraction of the projects delivered by Government. Major projects are the main mechanism by which the government invests in infrastructure, transforms services, and improves IT. The MPP includes high-profile projects such as Crossrail, Gov UK Verify, and the 30 hours free childcare programme.
There are many examples of costly project management failures across Government and the National Audit Office (NAO) highlighted the same issues afflicting multiple projects leading to cost and time overruns and failure to achieve benefits. In March 2019, a NAO report on Verify stated that it was an “example of many of the failings in major programmes that we often see, including optimism bias and failure to set clear objectives”.
The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee is holding an inquiry into how well such projects are managed by Government. The inquiry asks cross-cutting questions about how well the Government delivers projects, its ability to learn from mistakes, and the usefulness of published information for holding the Government to account.
View Project X’s submission to this inquiry under ‘written evidence’:
‘Concerns around the short, medium and long-term impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak’
Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) Survey
Project X Researcher, Dr Dicle Kortantamer, contributed to a POST survey on concerns around the short, medium and long-term impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak (May 2020).
The 15 areas of concern identified are listed here, along with the methodology for both conducting the survey and synthesising the insights. See the POST’s Horizon Scanning pages for synthesised reports on each of the 15 concerns of the 15.
‘Delivering the Government's infrastructure commitments through major projects’.
Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC) Inquiry.
Follow the link below to watch Project X present evidence at parliament under invitation from PACAC on 9th July 2019.
Watch: Parliament Live TV: How can research improve Government’s management of major projects?
Project X Witnesses: Professor Michael Bourne, Cranfield University, Dr Richard Kirkham University of Manchester, Professor Michael Lewis, University of Bath, and Professor Terry Williams, University of Hull.
View the PACAC Report published from this inquiry below:
(Project X’s submission to this inquiry can be accessed through the Report under ‘Project X (MMP0014)’ of ‘Published written evidence’, p39)