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'Red light' warnings for government IT projects rise
While 'green light' Gateway reviews fall

By Andy McCue

Published: Friday 17 November 2006

The number of government IT projects getting 'red light' warnings from Gateway reviews has risen over the last two years, while the number getting the 'green light' to proceed has fallen.

The latest official figures released by the government show that 409 IT projects were scrutinised by the Office of Government Commerce's Gateway review system - which awards a red, amber or green traffic signal status to projects - between April 2004 and June 2006.

Just over a third of these (34 per cent) received a red light warning, recommending that remedial action be taken immediately if the project is to have any chance of being delivered successfully. That is an increase of four per cent on the number of projects getting red lights in the previous two years between June 2002 and March 2004.

And as the number of projects getting red lights has increased, the number getting green lights - which signifies the project is on target to succeed - has fallen. Just 10 per cent of IT projects between April 2004 and June 2006 got a green light, down from 20 per cent for the two years before that.

The figures are revealed in the latest National Audit Office (NAO) report Delivering successful IT-enabled business change, which says the changes are difficult to interpret.

"Are reviewers becoming tougher and/or more cautious/risk averse? Is the management of programmes and projects deteriorating? Or are the programmes and projects being undertaken more risky? In addition, the OGC does not currently track the progress of individual programmes and projects through the Gateway process, which makes it difficult to assess where particular problems arise," the report said.

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The NAO report also draws on case studies of 15 central and local government IT projects to identify the key themes in successful IT-enabled public sector projects.

Projects deemed to have been successful include the pension credit system, the London Congestion Charge and the Department for Work and Pensions' £824m payment modernisation programme, which enabled pensions and benefits to be paid directly into bank accounts.

One of the key recommendations the NAO gives for central government departments is that ministers should be briefed at a sufficiently early stage to understand and act with an appropriate awareness of the risks and receive regular progress reports. The NAO found that a fifth of those responsible for the delivery of IT projects had no progress discussions with their minister.

Other recommendations include improved management of departments' portfolios of IT-enabled projects, and training in programme and project management, strategic thinking and communications and marketing for both specialists and non-specialists in Whitehall involved in IT projects.

Public Accounts Committee chairman Edward Leigh MP, commenting on the report, said in a statement: "Making IT projects work is not a matter of chance. Instead it is about applying the same sound judgement and common sense we would expect in any other field, and making the technology work for us, rather than the other way around."