Transparency data
CO Government Major Project Portfolio data, September 2014
Updated 25 June 2015
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| Project name | Electoral Registration Transformation Programme | National Citizen Service | National Cyber Security Programme | New Civil Service 2015 Pension Scheme Implementation | Next Generation Shared Services |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Department | CO | CO | CO | CO | CO |
| MPA RAG rating (A Delivery Confidence Assessment of the project at a fixed point in time, using a five-point scale, Red – Amber/Red – Amber – Amber/Green – Green; definitions in the MPA Annual Report) | Amber/Green | Amber/Green | Green | Amber | Amber/Red |
| Description / Aims (From GMPP data) | The Electoral Registration Transformation Programme was set up to deliver Individual Electoral Registration (IER) in England, Wales and Scotland ahead of the 2015 General Election. Instead of one person filling in the annual registration form and including everyone's details, individuals are expected to complete their own details and give supporting information, i.e. a national insurance number and date of birth. At the same time as the move to IER, online registration was made available to make it faster and more accessible. During the transisition stage the vast majority of current electors (87%) were automatically confirmed on the register by data matching with other public sector data. The programme aims to tackle electoral fraud and improve the integrity and completeness of the electoral register. | National Citizen Service (NCS) is a flagship government programme that gives 16 and 17-year-olds the chance to learn new skills and get involved in their communities. NCS promotes: • a more cohesive society by mixing participants of different backgrounds; • a more responsible society by supporting young people’s transition into adulthood; and • a more engaged society by enabling young people to work together to create social action projects in their local communities. NCS brings young people together from different backgrounds (e.g. religious, ethnic and socioeconomic) to work together, and teaches them what it means to be responsible and serve their communities. It is a high quality personal development programme that gives young people a chance to prove to themselves and their peers what they can do. NCS is part of a broader agenda of improving services and outcomes for young people between the ages of 13-19, reflected in the Positive for Youth policy statement published in December 2011. NCS builds on a substantial range of previous government initiatives that aim to increase voluntary activity among young people and develop their life and citizenship skills. Such initiatives include the National Young Volunteers’ Service and the Millennium Volunteers programme. The programme also draws inspiration from international programmes such as the Americorps, a programme developed in the United States that supports volunteering and engagement in social action. | The National Cyber Security Programme (NCSP) was put in place as a consequence of the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR), with a budget of £650 million over 4 years. Its aim is to deliver a transformative programme to give the UK a strategic advantage in cyber security and resilience. The programme is managed by the Office of Cyber Security and Information Assurance (OCSIA) in the Cabinet Office. With the agreement of Treasury as part of the latest Spending Review, the programme has been extended for a fifth year to 2015-16, with an additional £210m funding. | The purpose of the programme is to manage the successful delivery of the new pension arrangements against published timetables. Critical success factors: • Administration system, associated processes and all scheme documentation will be updated to be compliant with final regulations, enabling the scheme administrators (MyCSP Limited) to effectively manage members' benefits under the new scheme in line with SMB Contract requirements. • All members and prospective members will understand how they are affected by the new scheme, based on regular, clear and effective communication. • Where members are able to choose when they transfer to the new scheme, members will have had sufficient information to make a choice. • All employers have been provided with information and guidance to enable them to put members in the right scheme at the right time. | Next Generation Shared Services represents a long-standing commitment allied to the Civil Service Reform Plan to achieve efficiency and cost improvements to back office transactional services in finance, procurement, payroll and human resources services. The Next Generation Shared Services Strategy published in December 2012, established the Government’s strategic goals for Shared Services. |
| Departmental commentary on actions planned or taken on the MPA RAG rating. | Individual Electoral Registration (IER) went live on schedule in England and Wales in June 2014 and in Scotland in September 2014. The IER Digital Service is performing extremely well and 87% of existing electors were confirmed on the new Register without having to take any action. In excess of 9 million applications to register to vote were received prior to the 2015 General Election registration deadline, and 77% of these were online. An IER Support Centre has been established to manage and support the IER live service, and training, help and advice have been provided to Local Authorities as necessary. The programme is now focussed on (i) the realisation of operational efficiencies and opportunities for maximising the completeness and accuracy of the Register, and (ii) planning for a controlled and effective transition to business as usual. | The NCS Trust is now operational and has delivered the 2013 autumn programme and all of the 2014 programme. The NCS Trust and Cabinet Office are now focusing on the delivery of the 2015 programme, working with NCS providers to ensure that the programme continues to grow and provide strong outcomes. In order to support the continued expansion of the programme the NCS Trust have completed a procurement exercise to bring in new NCS providers to deliver the programme from autumn 2015 | 1. The NCSP 2014 Health check has now concluded and recommendations from that are being used to inform the Business Case process for Financial Year (FY) 15/16. As part of this round of Business Cases, delivery partners have been advised to consider the two scenarios post March 2016 when the NCSP is due to finish: what plans do they have in place if no further Programme is created and what plans do they have if there is another Programme (what further transformational work would they look to do). 2. The Health check also baselined where the Programme currently is, and work is underway to gather evidence for SDSR (as per Business Case scenario work above). 3. We have also created a new 'risk champion' within the Programme Team and have been working with delivery partners to improve risk reporting both in this FY and next FY. | • The new alpha pension scheme went 'live' on 01/04/15. The new legislation took effect and business processes and IT changes were ready to manage members' benefits under the new Civil Service Pensions arrangements. The focus is now on embedding the changes into 'Business as Usual'. • All key Communications have been issued, including guidance for employers to support them through the changes. • The main Options Exercise is complete, and processes are in place to manage exceptional member cases that arise. | ISSC1: Service performance has continued to deliver in line with the Service Level Agreement (SLA)/ Key Performance Indicators (KPI's) with a very low percentage of service failures. Customer departments remain satisfied with overall stable Business As Usual (BAU) operation of the contract, and as of December 2014, performance reports for SAP and Aggressor are provided to the framework and customer departments. The migration phase of the programme has experienced delivery date replans, however following a period of hibernation to allow arvato to focus on the successful migration of Maritime Coastguard Agency (MCA), customer departments are working with the Framework Authority and arvato to agree revised migration dates. Joint planning sessions have been arranged in January and February, for customer departments to discuss the planning timetable with a view to contractualising the revised migration dates. ISSC2 : BAU service performance has continued to deliver in line with the SLA/KPI's with a very low percentage of few service failures and MoJ and HO service is running well. Customer departments remain satisfied with overall operation of the contract. The Transformation phase of the programme has experienced schedule changes to the move of customers onto the new Single Operating Platform. Revised plans have been produced with new go-live dates for the IT delivery for EA and Defra. HO transformation plans have been produced and MoJ transformation plans are to follow at the end of January.2 |
| Project - Start Date (Latest approved start date) | 01/02/2010 | 01/10/2011 | 01/04/2011 | 15/04/2013 | 28/12/2012 |
| Project - End Date (Latest approved end date) | 31/03/2016 | 01/03/2015 | 01/04/2016 | 30/06/2016 | 30/04/2015 |
| Departmental narrative on schedule, including any deviation from planned schedule (if necessary) | During this period some individual minor milestones have deviated slightly from the original schedule, but the programme's critical milestones, overall timescale and original delivery dates remain on track. | NCS has continued to be delivered on schedule. | The Programme is still scheduled to complete on 01/04/2016 | The new pension arrangements were implemented from 1/4/2015 as planned, and work continues on embedding the changes into the 'Business as Usual' administrative arrangements. | Summary - During the previous period the focus was on the ISSC programmes to get them onboard and stable. During the next period more attention will be given to re-establishing the NGSS vision and ensuring there is a strategy for the ISSCs through the to contract exit and re-tender. The management of overall governance needs to be improved, a framework has been developed and a roll out plan is in place. Programme - This last programme phase has seen the stabilisation of MCA, with some post go live learnings encountered for future migrations, particularly on the effectiveness of testing end to end processes effectively. The first two large departments are now approaching go-live with EA go-live scheduled for July 27th 2015 (ISSC2) and DfT scheduled for 1 August 2015 (ISSC1), and on track, although small delays are possible. The quality of supplier programme plans has now improved for both ISSC1 and 2 to a detailed level that customer programme managers can use to track programme progress more effectively, however overarching programme plans are still required which Crown Oversite Function (COF) will now develop so that an overall critical path and associated resourcing risks can be managed. Significant programme delays are causing operational risks to departments facing end of support for current systems. Contingencies are in place but need close monitoring. Commercial - Commercial renegotiation has taken place with avarto which was required to make the contract financially viable for the supplier, and customers are in agreement with the new terms. Similar negotiations will be undertaken with ISSC2, although primarily this is to establish cost allocation for additional costs incurred by both customers and suppliers due to missed programme milestones and scope creep. Potentially CNC will leave the ISSC1 contract due to the delays causing them untenable operational risk due to end of life issues of current systems. Civil Nuclear Constulbary (CNC). The business case overall remains positive although processes still need to be put in place to manage the business case at a detailed level. Governance improvements. BAU - The BAU service has remained solid although the governance and reporting of BAU is being improved to ensure that any issues encountered post go live of new systems implementations are identified and rectified early. Due to the nature of this programme, the end date is expandable depending on new government departments signing up to one of the ISSC's. The end date is then re-planned, taking into consideration the transition period of the the new department. |
| 2014/2015 Budget (£million) | £65.50m | £140.00m | £210.00m | £11.70m | £12.00m |
| 2014/2015 Forecast (£million) | £65.50m | £140.00m | £220.00m | £11.40m | £12.00m |
| 2014/2015 Variance (£million) | £0.00m | £0.00m | £10.00m | -£0.30m | £0.00m |
| 2014/2015 Variance %age | 0% | 0% | 5% | -3% | 0% |
| Total budgeted whole life costs (£million) (including non-government costs) | £173.65m | £437.00m | £860.00m | £13.40m | £31.10m |
| Departmental narrative on budget/forecast variance for 2014/15 (if variance is more than 5%) | Budget variance less than 5% | Budget variance less than 5% | Variance above is due to planned over programming by the Programme Team. This reflects the maturity of the Programme and ensures better financial management of delivery partners. We have undergone a mid year review of finances in November and we now forecast that our total outturn for FY 14/15 will be £207.63m. This is a varaince of 1% from 14/15 budget. £2m of the projected underspend was rolled over at mid-year for use in the final year of the programme. | Budget variance less than 5% | Budget variance less than 5% |
| Departmental narrative on budgeted whole life costs | The whole life cycle is the Spending Review (SR) 2010 period and 2015/16 to 2018/19. Financial Year 2013/14 tested the process of confirmation in all local authorities in Great Britain for the first time and funding was made available to prepare for the transition to IER so that Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) could manage this change successfully in order to meet their legal responsibilities. Capital Expenditure for 2013/14 relates to the Digital project which was responsible for the delivery of the IT and Digital services. The budget was substantially higher for the financial year 2014/15 because this is when IER went live across England, Wales and Scotland. Successfully completing the transition of IER required £65.5m which will allow the Cabinet Office to deliver against the four ERTP programme objectives (I) Improve the completeness and accuracy of the electoral register (ii) Tackle fraud and increase public confidence in the register (iii) Increase the registration of people historically and prospectively (under IER) under registered; and (iv) Provide greater citizen choice around how they register. A significant portion of this funding was contingency, to deal with uncertainty in how a new system will operate in a live environment; actual expenditure has come in well within tolerance. The budgets and forecast are robust and accurate. The programme has a budget in FY15/16 to complete the transition to IER. | The budget for the whole life of the programme whilst it remains on the Governments Major Projects Portfolio (GMPP) is £300million (2011 - 2015). There is additional budget allocated for 15/16 when the programme will continue to run but will no longer be on the GMPP. This stands at £126million | We received Ministerial approval for the allocations for FY 15/16 on 25th February, which takes us up until the end of this programme. We will continue to monitor finances throughout the final year of the programme as per the previous 4 years. | We received financial approval for 13.4m WLC in 2013. Continue to monitor and forecast costs. | NGSS received approval for the FY 14/15 budget, up until the end of said financial year. This will then be reviewed/amended accordingly for FY 15/16. NGSS will continue to monitor finances throughout the year. |