Agenda item

To report to the Committee on the work that is being done to build project management knowledge and resilience within the council.

The Corporate Programme and Project Managers gave a short introduction to the Framework and said they believed that project governance was a key part to managing organisational risk. They explained that it was not a new framework but an existing one that had been refreshed and that their role was to ensure that projects across the organisation were delivered to the highest possible standard, consistently, with clear oversight and accountability. They still reported to CLT for final sign-off.

Cllr Cushing asked if the framework was based on Prince 2 principles. The CPPM said it was a hybrid as some service areas did things more agilely, but they did use some of those principles associated with Prince 2 without being too heavy handed as it was important they had consistency in governance. The CPPM said, in response to a query from Cllr Cushing, the number of projects they had in progress was around 14 with a further 81 that had been proposed but not started.

The DRC explained that the Major Project Oversight Board, was not a delivery board, their role was to ensure that the governance process was working and to highlight any significant risks that weren’t being mitigated or controlled and then escalated appropriately. They did not release finds of any kind that was the responsibility of Full Council.

The CPPM responded to a query from Cllr Penfold regarding how they evaluated a project, such as the North Walsham Heritage Action Zone, when working with partnering organisations who had different strategic objectives to the Council, saying they also had an external board where objectives would all be set out, and agreed, before the project was initiated.

In follow-up to observations made by the IP, the CPPM said they were already having regular meetings with those key departments that were likely to crossover into a project and as part of the proposal document they were pushing to have sign off from all the managers of the teams who would most likely be involved in an effort to raise awareness of the resource required and at what stage they were needed. They had implemented a log to capture what was done well and what they needed to improve upon throughout the course of a project that could then be fed into future ones. In light of LGR, they were developing an internal project management working group which they were looking to expand across other local authorities to discover any best working practices that could be shared.

The CPPM agreed with the Chair that it was important to review a project 12 months after completion to evaluate did it deliver and if not, why not, and this was already part of the existing framework but again they were working with teams to identify what benefits they were looking to see from that project down the line.

It was asked by the Chair at what point, if any, did the Project Management Team engage with Members. The CPPM felt that portfolio holders for those project areas should be reporting back to Cabinet or Full Council, but the Chair stipulated that with her experience the projects that often failed were those with no proper project proposals and they had no Councillor oversight. The CPPM said that would happen and they were refreshing the framework to ensure it did.

Cllr Cushing felt that in his experience every project had a sponsor who was ultimately responsible, and held accountable, for its delivery but also for the fulfilment of any associated benefits. If that sponsor in the Council’s case was a staff member of the CLT they should in turn report back to a Cabinet Member as those projects were instigated as part of policy and he suggested that if that thread was not there already, they should consider adding it in. The CPPM agreed that this was a good point to start that process of engaging with Members through the various respective council committees.

The DSD suggested that a report, or an update could be submitted, via the DRC, as Chair of the Major Project Oversight Board, to the Governance, Risk and Audit Committee to open that avenue of dialogue going forward.

ACTION: The Committee agreed a summary report should be provided by the CPPM for the DRC to present, as necessary, going forward.