Government Departments: ICT

Mr. Vaizey
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what guidance his Department has issued to other Government departments on budget control for Government ICT projects.

Mr. Byrne
OGC's best practice sets a framework for public sector project management which includes cost and budget management through the project lifecycle. in addition, OGC's project assurance tools, eg the OGC Gateway™ process, give visibility of cost control aspects of projects and recommendations are made as appropriate.

In addition, a major strand of the supply management initiative which was launched in 2006 is performance improvement via a two-way common assessment framework designed to address shortfalls in delivery and to deliver cash savings. Every six months, on a commercially confidential basis, departments review supplier performance on key ICT projects: one of the areas for review being ‘delivery to cost parameters’.