Valuation Office: Standards

Mr. Pickles
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assistance the Office for Government Commerce has provided to the Valuation Office Agency on Gateway reviews; and what the (a) title of each project is and (b) purpose for which assistance has been provided is.

Sarah McCarthy-Fry
The Office of Government Commerce has arranged several OGC Gateway™ reviews for the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) on a number of their projects.

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|Project name                  |Department/associated body|Start of Gateway |Gate|
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|Data Collection               |HMRC/VOA                  |24 September 2003|1   |
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|Manual Valuations             |HMRC/VOA                  |6 April 2004     |1   |
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|Manual Valuations             |HMRC/VOA                  |17 October 2005  |4   |
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|CTR 2007—IT Project           |HMRC/VOA                  |26 April 2005    |1   |
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|CTR 2007—Enquiries and Appeals|HMRC/VOA                  |9 May 2005       |2   |
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In January 2008 HMRC received delegated authority from the OGC to arrange and carry out Gateway reviews on projects and programmes designated as ‘medium risk’ within HMRC and its associated agencies and non-departmental public bodies. HMRC carried out a Gateway 0 Review of the VOA’s World Class Programme, in October 2008.

The OGC Gateway Process is designed to provide independent assurance to senior responsible owners (SROs) across central civil Government on the health of their programmes and projects. The selection of the Gateway review team is undertaken independently of VOA by the HMRC Gateway team. The review team leader would be from another Government Department and the review team members would be from within HMRC and independent of the VOA project.

The purpose of the individual Gateway reviews detailed above is as follows:

Gate 0: Strategic assessment

This is a programme-only review that investigates the direction and planned outcomes of the programme, together with the progress of its constituent projects. It is repeated over the life of the programme at key decision points.

Gate 1: Business justification

This first project review comes after the strategic business case has been prepared. It focuses on the project’s business justification prior to the key decision on approval for development proposal.

Gate 2: Delivery strategy

This review investigates the outline business case and the delivery strategy before any formal approaches are made to prospective suppliers or delivery partners. The review may be repeated in long or complex procurement situations.

Gate 4: Readiness for service

This review focuses on the readiness of the organisation to go live with the necessary business changes, and the arrangements for management of the operational services.