Home Office ESMCP programme get red flag in IPA report
The Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA) has published its annual report on the Government’s key projects and the Home Office’s Emergency Services Mobile Communications Project (ESCMCP) and a string of defence projects are standout recipients of red warning ratings. As evidenced by the Public Accounts Committee’s interest in the project, the Home Office’s ESMCP project appears to be in significant trouble, having now slipped to a red rating when it was amber a year ago. A red rating, according to the report, means successful delivery of the project appears “unachievable”. It means there are “major issues with project definition, schedule, budget, quality and/or benefits delivery, which at this stage do not appear to be manageable or resolvable. The project may need re-scoping and/or its overall viability reassessed.”
The report’s narrative on ESMCP says, “In the light of continuing challenges with some of the authority projects and subsequent evidence of further slippage from the main suppliers, work has started on a full scale programme re-plan. The aim is to complete the re-plan, engage in commercial renegotiations and recalculate the Full Business Case (FBC) numbers by late September 2018.
Read more