This briefing note draws on lessons developed in our report Welfare reform – lessons learned and sets out broader principles from our work auditing government programmes and reporting on value for money.
It is important that the DWP use the hard lessons it learned from implementing its recent programme of welfare reforms to improve how it manages change and anticipates risk.
Optimism bias in public sector projects is not a new phenomenon. But it is one that persists, frequently undermining projects’ value for money as time and cost are under estimated and benefits over estimated. This report uses our back catalogue to illustrate the consequences of over optimism. In doing so, we have identified some contributory factors – such as project complexity and an organisation’s culture of challenge.