Events

6th September 2012

Delivering Public Projects - What is best practice?

Public sector projects have their own challenges and difficulties beyond those promoted and funded by the private sector. Public projects are subject to high levels of democratic scrutiny including transparency, accountability and political oversight. By the nature of their funding they can be subjected to delays and interventions, particularly around affordability and financing. The social benefits which many projects can deliver, bring pressures which encourage the promotion of more projects than can be afforded within the annual fiscal cycle. All of these challenges, and more, are focused through the project sponsor, leadership and corporate governance.

As a means to improving the development and delivery of its major projects across all Government Departments, the Cabinet Office has established the Major Projects Authority. We are privileged to have David Pitchford, Head of the Authority, as our Chair for this seminar.

The formation of the Major Projects Authority was actually announced at one of our seminars in January 2011 by Ian Watmore, COO Cabinet Office. At our Annual Conference in 2011we heard from a Director of Infrastructure UK. Hence this seminar builds on our relationship with senior Government officials and enables delegates to both learn from and inform key influencers in public sector projects.
Based on the requirements of Central Government Departments, the National Infra-structure Plan 2011, the Infrastructure Cost Review, and the influence of the 2012 Budget, we will understand how the pipeline of projects and the long-term ambitions for each sector are developing. Underpinning this will be a clear understanding on the route to procurement, aligning the pipeline of projects to the marketplace and the necessary funding mechanisms that will have to be in place to make this happen.