The news has come down through CFH channels that there will be additional processes in place for 'major projects' instituted by the Cabinet Office. Essentially, projects worth over £35M or considered 'novel, contentious or repercussive' will have to go through an additional authorisation process and have even more reporting overheads than they do already. This is in addition to the bureacratic overheads imposed by OGC Gateway review and the whole process of developing complex business cases and gettiing them signed off by the Treasury.
So, from a government committed to cutting bureaucracy we have .... even more bureaucracy. No surprises there then, because the reality is that the needs of the centre to exercise control and provide accountability constantly trumps any desire to cut bureaucracy or allow any level of delegated authority. The frustrating thing for the humble project manager trying to negotiate this labrynthine morass of opaque process is that there is never any attempt to integrate the new bureaucratic hurdles into the existing ones.
So even though the OGC has been absorbed into Cabinet Office, and the Major Project Authority is a collaboration between the Cabinet Office and the Treasury, there will still be completely separate processes for OGC Gateways, MPA approval and Treasury sign off. And there will need to be more people in CFH to help negotiate all of this.
Plus ca change.
