It’s nearly a year since Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party were elected with a huge majority, promising ‘mission-led government’ that would “move away from sticking-plaster politics”. In other words, there would be – its supporters argued – significant benefits for people across the UK through the delivery of big, ambitious national missions.
At this crucial stage, 12 months in, we’ve been thinking about the importance of setting clear objectives on the way to maximising impact. It’s something that we try to embed into every project we work on, whether with central government, local government, or our policing partners. This case study from our project with Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) is a great example.
Context
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has many programmes in the Government’s Major Projects Portfolio. In the March 2023 Delivery Confidence assessment, 19 of these programmes were rated as ‘amber’ and 1 was ‘red’, with one of the cited risks being the complex nature of some of the transformation projects.
Many of the trickiest projects in the MoJ’s list sit in the HMPPS change portfolio and are being delivered against a backdrop of significant and increasing demand pressures for courts and prison places, scarce resources, and a shortage of specialist programme delivery skills. Yet, there is huge pressure for these transformational programmes to deliver results and ensure the public are protected.
The Challenge
A large programme within HMPPS was looking for a programme ‘reset.’ This aimed to improve its overall performance, after a stage-gate review had identified several ‘red’ and ‘amber’ risks and challenges.
The programme had been having ongoing challenges with team capacity and leadership changes and needed increased confidence that the existing plans were going to deliver on the expected benefits. Given the size and complexity of this programme, HMPPS agreed that independent assurance and acceleration would be beneficial and engaged Leapwise to support.
Our Approach
Through an initial set of leadership and programme team workshops, we reviewed and prioritised the key challenges within the programme against our critical success factors for major change (see our VICTORY Framework). This created rapid alignment within the leadership team on the biggest strengths, weaknesses, and programme risks. This was a broader assessment than the previous stage-gate reviews, focusing on cultural and skills-based issues within the programme as much as traditional programme and project management hygiene factors.
We agreed with the client that there was a need to build on the initial evidence base for change that had been developed. This would require data-driven approaches to planning, project management and benefits management.
Over the following three months, we worked alongside the programme team to strengthen benefits management practices, focusing heavily on developing bespoke tools that were fit-for-purpose within HMPPS, and upskilling the programme team on good practice. Due to the complexity of the programme, our approach broadened from the initial scope, and involved:
- Validating efficiency gains and identifying key improvement benefits
- Assessing project data and plans to develop confidence ratings against each benefit
- Improving project plans with leads to address critical work gaps and risks, to boost confidence ratings
- Setting up a process improvement methodology and guidance
- Developing a benefits management strategy and approach that included tools, templates, and governance for tracking
We also ensured alignment with MoJ requirements and best practices on programme and project management.
Results
Overall, Leapwise developed a robust process and tracking mechanism to enable the programme to target cashable savings and rapidly identify delivery shortfalls. We also established new workstreams to increase confidence in delivering the identified transformational benefits and were able to provide more holistic programme performance recommendations (based on the critical success factors).
Key to this success was the ongoing collaboration with HMPPS, who embedded us into their programme team. The programme team were incredibly dedicated, going above and beyond in their roles, to improve their programme management practices with the goal of enhancing public outcomes.
“Leapwise worked alongside the team to achieve a clear line of sight between objectives and activity. What worked particularly well was the flexible and embedded approach that Leapwise took, adapting their focus to meet an evolving brief. I would look forward to working with Leapwise again.“
– Jim Barton, Executive Director, HMPPS Change
Please get in touch with our team to discuss how you can maximise programme benefits, especially when dealing with high-complexity projects or business areas.
