Archives for August 21st, 2000

REGENERATORS WIN COMMUNITY HEARTS

Headlines, PublicNet: 21 August, 2000

Five projects have been praised for innovative partnership approaches to improving the quality of life in deprived areas. The projects, in Birmingham, Manchester, Cumbria, East Anglia and Wiltshire have all been nominated as finalists in this year’s Secretary of State Award for Partnerships in Regeneration. Among their key characteristics is that the projects have successfully involved the local communities – helping to ensure they meet local need and generate a sense of local ownership.Among the schemes are Cumbria Credits, an SRB partnership which has set up community development centres throughout rural and urban Cumbria, which offer education and training to give local people usually excluded from more conventional methods the skills and confidence not only to get jobs but also to continue the local regeneration process.

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PFI PROJECT LESSONS

Headlines, PublicNet: 21 August, 2000

Analysis of a failed high profile PFI project should provide some lessons for those involved in future projects of the potential pitfalls. The Benefits Payment Card Project was originally planned to automate the paying of social security benefits at the Post Office. A PFI contract was jointly awarded by the Benefits Agency and Post Office Counters Limited to a subsidiary of the ICL computer services group in 1996. The project was abandoned in May last year having cost the DSS 127 million, the Post Office more than 500 million and ICL 180 million pounds in development.It is now the subject of a National Audit Office report, which has identified important lessons to government and the wider IT community on handling major projects and managing inherent risks. Divided control of the project, insufficient time for specifying the requirement and piloting, and the lack of a shared, open approach to risk management have all been identified as factors in the project’s failure. The NAO says that the project was probably never fully deliverable within the very tight timetable originally specified. It also points to two of the major partners having different objectives for the project, which, though not incompatible, led to tensions.

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