Half of the projects reviewed by David Smith, a member of the government’s Major Projects Review Group (MPRG), have “inadequate commercial procurement resource, and don’t know where to get it from,” Smith has told a CSW conference.

Speaking last week at the conference, which was supported by SAP, the Design Council and the British Standards Institute, Smith – who is the Department for Work and Pensions’ commercial director – said that of the projects he has helped to review, “some don’t have a procurement or commercial lead at all; some have an inadequate one; some have never considered it as anything important.”

At a separate CSW seminar on project management, sponsored by HP, the deputy head of the Major Projects Authority (MPA), Stephen Mitchell, said that moves to put together a portfolio of major projects will help to identify skills gaps in Whitehall and provide evidence to support requests for the use of consultants where required.

The MPA has already identified a need to develop capability to lead major projects effectively, and will next year set up a UK Government Major Project Leadership Academy in partnership with a business school.
MPA director David Pitchford, speaking at the CSW conference, said the academy won’t seek to teach project management methodologies but will focus “absolutely and solely” on developing leadership capability. The first cohort will start the course next March, he said, and within two to three years academy graduates will form the “basis of a project leadership profession within Whitehall”

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Written by CSW