| Department |
CO |
CO |
CO |
CO |
CO |
| MPA RAG rating
(A Delivery Confidence Assessment of the project at a fixed point in time, using a five-point scale, Red Amber/Red Amber Amber/Green Green; definitions in the MPA Annual Report) |
Green |
Amber |
Amber |
Amber |
Amber/Red |
| Description / aims |
The Public Services Network is creating a single network for government IT, ensuring information can be securely and easily accessed by service providers wherever they are, ridding us of the cost and inefficiency of multiple, incompatible networks. |
The National Cyber Security Programme (NCSP) was put in place as a consequence of the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR), with a budget of £650 million over 4 years. Its aim is to deliver a transformative programme to give the UK a strategic advantage in cyber security and resilience. The programme is managed by the Office of Cyber Security and Information Assurance (OCSIA) in the Cabinet Office. |
National Citizen Service (NCS) is a flagship government programme that gives 16 and 17-year-olds the chance to learn new skills and get involved in their communities. NCS promotes:
a more cohesive society by mixing participants of different backgrounds;
a more responsible society by supporting young peoples transition into adulthood; and
a more engaged society by enabling young people to work together to create social action projects in their local communities.
NCS brings young people together from different backgrounds (e.g. religious, ethnic and socioeconomic) to work together, and teaches them what it means to be responsible and serve their communities. It is a high quality personal development programme that gives young people a chance to prove to themselves and their peers what they can do.
In 2012 the programme tripled the programme from 2011.
The 2013/14 delivery model sees a move from grant funding to contracts for all NCS providers, including new providers. The programme is also establishing an Independent Management Body to manage NCS contracts, and support providers to thrive and grow.
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The Electoral Registration Transformation Programme will speed up implementation of Individual Electoral Registration (IER) to tackle electoral fraud and improve the integrity of the electoral register. This will include legislation to bring forward implementation of compulsory IER to 2014, ahead of the next general election. Instead of one person filling in the annual registration form and including everyone's details, individuals will be expected to complete their own details and give supporting information - i.e. a national insurance number. Ensuring that the electoral register is as full as possible (i) will lead to increased democratic participation; (ii) gives a voice to local people leading to a legitimate political mandate; (iii) assists local people by supporting identification and residence, and (iv) is used as a basis for the collection of national statistics. |
Implementing the Government Cloud, CloudStore (formerly the Applications Store) and rationalising the number of data centres (programme now known as Hosting Services Consolidation) in order to deliver financial savings. Achieved by the delivery of the following action identified in the Government ICT Strategy published in March 2011:
* Create a online Applications Store by April 2012
* Reduce the cost of data centres across the Government estate leading to a 35% reduction in costs over 5 years. Produce a plan by October 2011
* Publish a Cloud Computing Strategy by October 2011 |
| Departmental narrative, actions on Delivery Confidence Assessment |
This is a mature and successful programme, delivering quantifiable benefit, as recognised by the Major Projects Authority |
In recent months, significant progress has been made on governance and benefits management, which were in their early stages at the time of this assessment by the MPA, and the programme was given a largely positive profile in the recent NAO Landscape Report. |
The Programme completed a successful business case to move from a grant to contract delivery model and to support the 2013/14 procurement of these providers in November 2012. A group of organisations including charities and colleges were subsequently selected to deliver contracts worth £200 million to run National Citizen Service. Eight bidders were successful, including four charities, two college consortia and two Voluntary, Community, Social Enterprise (VCSE) and private sector partnerships. As a result, over 120 organisations are involved in the national and local delivery of NCS in 2013 and 2014, including over 70 organisations from the VCSE sector, and around 50 colleges and local authorities.
To address the recommendations in the Gateway Review report, the Cabinet Office recruited a dedicated Head of Programme Development. There is now has a comprehensive and integrated programme plan and risk regime in place, with all the necessary tools embedded to ensure the Cabinet Office Team have clear, strong and integrated up to date plans, risk registers and status reports to monitor progress. This includes detailed and robust risk and issue management plans to support the delivery of the places for 2013 and 2014 programmes.
The lack of Team resource and skill has also been addressed and the Cabinet Office Team is now fully complemented with proficient expertise, with particular attention to the needs of 2013 and 2014 programme providers. Since the assessment, transfer of full responsibility of NCS to the Cabinet Office from DfE is going well.
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The Programme has been reset for the implementing phase, including the recruitment of extra staff resources, the development of programme management structure and the alignment of individual projects. The legislation has now passed to the intended timescales, the achievement of this wasn't certain at the time of the assessment. |
The Programme has delivered a viable CloudStore supported by an ambitious procurement framework. It has marketed this across a wide range of ICT vendors and the public sector. The concept has clearly generated an enthusiastic response from suppliers, particularly SMEs, that have not previously had access to government. In the last couple of months G-Cloud has started to see exponential growth in sales and anecdotal evidence suggests that it has driven considerable levels of savings through transparent pricing.
The Programme still has a significant number of challenges to overcome to reach its stated savings objectives and its aspiration to fundamentally change central government ICT buying behaviours. In particular, departments have yet to fully change their culture in terms of approach to ICT as old ways of doing things are so deeply engrained. Key to this is a reshaping of the Programme to focus on the commercial aspects of the CloudStore as a retail proposition, improving the user experience and engaging the buying community more directly in the objectives of the programme. Crucial to large scale take-up will be working with departments and the Cabinet Office spending controls team to enforce use of the CloudStore across central government.
Scaling G-Cloud has been difficult to achieve to date due to the teams focus on the start up activities and the lack of appropriate funds and resources.
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