British Broadcasting Corporation

Management of the BBC’s critical projects

Report by the Comptroller and Auditor General

This report has been prepared under Clause 79 of the Broadcasting Agreement, as amended, between the Secretary of State for Culture, Media & Sport and the BBC dated July 2006

Sir Amyas Morse KCB
Comptroller and Auditor General
National Audit Office

15 April 2016

This report examines the performance of the BBC’s critical projects and the effectiveness of the BBC’s oversight following the changes it made to project governance and reporting in 2014.

© National Audit Office 2016

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11064 04/16 NAO

The National Audit Office study team consisted of:
Julie Bouchard, Richard Gauld, Claire Hardy, Alex Kaiser, David Mannion, Fatima-Zohra Yaagoub, under the direction of Peter Gray.

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Key facts

Summary

1 The BBC is the UK’s main public service broadcaster. It receives public funding from television licence fees, totalling £3.7 billion in 2014-15. In return, the BBC provides a range of public broadcasting services, including nine television channels, ten UK network radio stations, 40 radio stations for nations and regions, 28 international language services and BBC Online.

2 The media sector in which the BBC operates is changing rapidly because of technological developments, new competition and shifting consumer behaviour. The BBC needs to adapt to these changes and achieve its strategic vision by improving its services, delivering them in new ways and simplifying how it is run. The BBC expects these improvements to enable it to serve audiences better while cutting costs.

3 Projects and programmes are an important part of the BBC’s strategic response to change. The BBC has grouped what it considers to be its most strategically important, complex and high-risk projects into a portfolio of ‘critical projects’, for enhanced attention by its Executive Board. There is also a larger portfolio of associate projects monitored by the BBC’s central project management office. The BBC’s list of critical projects changes over time as new projects start and existing ones are completed. The list of critical projects as at March 2015, which formed the focus for this study, is shown at Figure 1.

4 Some of our previous reports on individual BBC projects have highlighted examples of success, such as the BBC’s completion of a major project to relocate several departments to Salford. But we have also reported on examples where there have been shortcomings in the BBC’s oversight and delivery of projects. The most serious issues were associated with the BBC’s Digital Media Initiative project. Weaknesses in oversight of the Digital Media Initiative included the lack of a single point of accountability, weaknesses in the internal assurance arrangements, a lack of clarity over what was to be delivered at each stage, and a lack of clear and timely reporting to the Board on performance. The BBC cancelled this project in May 2013, more than four years after starting it, after concluding that £98.4 million of the £126 million spent on it had been wasted.

5 In response to the failure of its Digital Media Initiative project the BBC took steps to overhaul its reporting and oversight arrangements for critical projects. It reported in June 2014 that it had introduced simpler and stronger corporate governance arrangements for projects. In its response to the Committee of Public Accounts’ report on the Digital Media Initiative, the BBC confirmed that all critical projects had been allocated a single point of accountability. This individual was to be equivalent to the senior responsible owner in government departments. The BBC defines the sponsor as “the individual for whom the project is undertaken and who is accountable for its benefits and outcomes”, in its internal guidance.

Scope and approach

6 This report examines the performance of the BBC’s critical projects and the effectiveness of the BBC’s oversight following the changes it made to project governance and reporting in 2014. We examine:

the performance of the BBC’s portfolio of critical projects, as reported to the Executive Board and the BBC Trust (Part One); and

what the BBC does to check that performance information on its critical projects is accurate, clear and up-to-date, and that the projects are on course to deliver planned benefits to time and cost (Part Two).

Key findings

Project delivery

7 The BBC’s performance reporting to its Executive Board and the BBC Trust indicates that by February 2016 it rated delivery of six of the eight critical projects to be ‘probable’ or ‘highly likely’. The BBC rated successful delivery to be feasible for one project (Aurora), and ‘in doubt’ for another (MyBBC). In March 2016 the BBC informed us that it expected the outstanding issues on MyBBC to be resolved. The BBC rated achievement of planned outcomes as ‘probable’ or ‘highly likely’ for seven projects and ‘feasible’ for one (E20) (Figure 4).

8 The BBC has been optimistic about timetables for completing projects when approving business plans. Five of the eight projects in the portfolio have been delayed compared with the timetable approved in the outline business plan, which suggests optimism bias at the business plan stage. One project has been delivered early. Where delays have occurred, delays have tended to happen during the early stages of projects. In one delayed case, delaying the procurement, based on BBC estimates, has led to an increase in expected benefits. Overall, the BBC has sought to remain within approved budgets by re-examining planned costs and its approach to delivery. In only one case (Smart, which aimed to replace and integrate systems used for finance, procurement, human resources and training) were delays associated with significant cost increases, from £39 million to £55.7 million, during implementation. In this case forecast benefits increased by £12.4 million (Figure 8).

Project oversight

9 The BBC has strengthened its oversight arrangements for critical projects in response to the lessons learned following the failure of the Digital Media Initiative. The BBC has increased the remit and capability of its central project management office, which now provides guidance, support and assurance for projects and challenges the information supplied by critical project teams. It has increased the frequency of reporting on project performance to the Executive Board from quarterly to monthly. It has also reduced the time taken to get performance information to the Board, from 66 days on average between January 2010 and March 2013 to 27 days between October 2014 and September 2015. Increasing the frequency of reporting and reducing the time taken to produce reports has helped the Executive Board to recognise and respond to problems more quickly than before (paragraphs 2.12 to 2.14).

10 The assurance arrangements have worked well where projects have been clearly defined, but there remain some weaknesses in defining responsibilities and expected benefits. Six of the projects we examined had a clear scope, defined benefits, and it was clear from the documentation who was accountable for delivery. For the most part, the assurance arrangements were effective in challenging potential weak points in those projects. For MyBBC, responsibilities and expected benefits were less clearly defined early in the project, and for End-to-End Digital, project documentation was not clear on the extent to which accountability for the programme included accountability for the delivery of significant components of the programme, including their expected benefits (paragraphs 2.15 to 2.17).

MyBBC

Project documentation for MyBBC did not delineate sufficiently between the responsibilities held by senior people within the project. Project documentation, including monthly reports to the Executive Board, named the ‘business sponsor’ as the single point of accountability. BBC guidance normally regards the ‘executive sponsor’, a different person, as the single point of accountability. In this instance, the evidence suggests that the executive sponsor had chaired the MyBBC steering group meetings. However, in the investment case the BBC named the ‘business sponsor’ as the single point of accountability, whereas the accompanying summary document named the ‘executive sponsor’ as the single point of accountability. In August 2015 the BBC clarified senior responsibilities and published an assurance plan, which clearly defined senior project roles.

The BBC set targets for MyBBC in terms of numbers of registered users but did not create a plan to measure benefits until late in the project. MyBBC is an ‘agile’ project that was designed to define benefits as the project progressed, but two years into the project it still was not clear what the BBC expected MyBBC to achieve overall. In January 2016 the BBC produced a paper that showed how it was tracking and measuring benefits. The BBC informed us that it hoped to have the full benefits plan signed off by the Executive Board in April 2016. So far the MyBBC project has delivered new capabilities, including the ability for users to sign in when accessing services via digital devices and the ability to make recommendations to these users tailored to individual preferences on iPlayer, news and sport.

End-to-End Digital

The BBC designated a single person, at Executive Board level, as accountable for delivery of End-to-End Digital, but it was not clear from the documentation what this accountability encompassed. End-to-End Digital is, in effect, a portfolio of project activities. However, project documentation was not clear on the extent to which accountability for the programme included accountability for the delivery of significant components of the programme, including their expected benefits. The project included a re-procurement of the BBC’s Playout technology which the BBC expects will result in savings of £42.8 million compared to the cost of the previous contract, which involved a videotape-based process. The lack of clear documentation covering the scope of accountability for this project does not seem to have undermined the procurement process in this instance; however, such a weakness repeated on other projects could create risks for successful delivery.

Strategic outcomes

11 There is scope for the BBC to focus greater attention on how far the portfolio as a whole supports progress towards delivering the BBC vision. The BBC’s critical project portfolio has helped focus the attention of the Executive Board on vital projects. However, the Board needs a greater top-down focus on how the projects as a portfolio are performing against delivering the BBC vision. In particular (paragraphs 2.21 to 2.25):

Board review of the critical project portfolio: The Executive Board, as a group, does not routinely review the composition of the critical project portfolio. The BBC expects the critical projects portfolio to support corporate decision-making by enabling the Executive Board to prioritise proposals and monitor performance collectively. The BBC informed us that the Managing Director of Finance and Operations reviewed the composition of the portfolio on behalf of the Executive Board. But the evidence we collected suggests there is scope for board members to take a more active role in reviewing which projects are the most critical to achieving the BBC’s strategy, and therefore should be included in the critical projects portfolio.

Delivering benefits: While the BBC has managed interdependencies between projects in terms of their potential to impact on delivery timetables, it has paid less attention to whether the portfolio as a whole will deliver those benefits crucial to the delivery of the overall BBC vision. The technological changes being implemented by the BBC are intended to enable it to become a more integrated business. As part of its vision, for example, the BBC is aiming to work more closely with other organisations, and to make more use of locally generated and user-generated content. As a result, projects will increasingly need to provide infrastructure that is integrated and supports delivery of the overall BBC vision. There is scope for the Executive Board to increase its focus on how the BBC projects work together to achieve strategic goals.

Conclusion on value for money

12 The BBC has strengthened oversight of its critical projects following the serious shortcomings that we identified in the oversight and delivery of its Digital Media Initiative project. It now reports more frequently on project performance to the Executive Board and has reduced the time taken to prepare reports. For the six projects that had clear milestones and quantified benefits, improved reporting and oversight have helped bring issues to the Board’s attention more quickly than before and supported timelier decisions about whether to change or delay projects.

13 While progress has been made, further concerted action is needed. The BBC’s assurance arrangements cannot give confidence that projects will achieve value for money if performance and expected benefits are not defined and reported clearly from the start. The BBC needs to do more to manage its critical projects as a coherent portfolio. This will be crucial if the BBC is to achieve value for money from its assurance arrangements.

Recommendations

a The BBC should ensure that it is consistent in how it describes project responsibilities. In one case there was potential for confusion around the roles of various sponsors. In a second case the scope of the executive sponsor’s responsibility was unclear in the project documentation. This was not helped by inconsistent use of terminology to describe the various roles.

b The BBC should ensure that reporting on critical project performance to the Executive Board and the Trust is always clear and comprehensive. We found that reporting to the Executive Board was unclear in two instances about progress against plans, about what more needed to be done and the link between what the projects were delivering and how much had been spent on them.

c The BBC should prepare benefits realisation plans for all of its critical projects at an early stage and monitor progress against them. We have previously emphasised the importance of projects setting out the intended benefits at the outset and developing benefits realisation plans as projects progress. For projects where the desired outcome and outputs may be difficult to specify at the outset, the assurance arrangements should be sufficiently robust to ensure intended outputs and outcomes are defined sufficiently quickly.

d The Executive Board should discuss the composition of the critical projects portfolio routinely and collectively. We consider that there is scope for all members of the Executive Board, including non-executives, to take a more active role in deciding which projects are included in the portfolio.

Part One

Background

1.1 The BBC is carrying out a series of projects to help achieve its vision to serve audiences better and improve the way it works. In this report we focus on the BBC’s ‘critical projects’. These are projects assessed by the BBC as the most strategically important, complex and high-risk.

1.2 This Part covers:

the BBC’s role, organisation and funding;

the role of critical projects; and

our previous reports on BBC projects.

The BBC’s role, organisation and funding

1.3 The BBC is a public corporation that operates under a fixed-term royal charter. The charter sets out the BBC’s public purposes and duties. The current 10-year charter, which expires in December 2016, places a duty on the BBC to promote six public purposes (Figure 2). The BBC promotes these through services that include nine television channels, ten UK network radio stations, 40 stations for UK nations and regions, 28 international language services and the BBC iPlayer. It provides its services alongside private sector companies in fast-moving and highly competitive markets.

1.4 The BBC is overseen by the BBC Trust. The Trust is responsible for setting the BBC’s overall strategic direction. It is also responsible for holding the BBC’s Executive Board to account for fulfilling the BBC’s public purposes and providing value for money. The Executive Board, chaired by the BBC’s Director General, is responsible for providing services in line with priorities set by the BBC Trust, and for the operational and financial management of the BBC. Individual BBC divisions manage specific services, functions and geographical areas.

1.5 The BBC is funded mainly by income from television licence fees. In 2014-15 this totalled £3.7 billion. Some licence fee income is used to fund activities other than the BBC’s core public broadcasting services, such as the roll-out of rural broadband and local television. The BBC also generates income from commercial activities. These are carried out mainly by its wholly owned commercial subsidiary BBC Worldwide Limited. BBC Worldwide returned £226.5 million to fund public service broadcasting in 2014-15.

The role of critical projects

1.6 In September 2015 the BBC’s Director General outlined the BBC’s strategic vision for the next charter period. The three main elements are to make the BBC more open, allow it to thrive in an internet age and to create a leaner and simpler organisation:

Make the BBC more open: The BBC plans to enter new partnerships with cultural and educational institutions to curate and showcase UK output. The BBC also wants to make more use of user-generated content and work with local newspapers to provide comprehensive news services across the UK.

Allow the BBC to thrive in an internet age: Linked to its plans to make the BBC more open, the BBC intends to show original content from other UK broadcasters on its iPlayer service. It also plans to launch a new video-on-demand service for children. Core to its vision is offering personalised services for its online audiences that meet their individual needs.

Create a leaner and simpler organisation: The BBC intends to make further efficiency savings and prioritise its resources and services in the face of new financial pressures.

1.7 The BBC has several hundred projects and other activities that together aim to help it respond to the changing environment and achieve its strategic vision. It has grouped its most strategically important, complex and high-risk projects into a portfolio of associate projects, and a portfolio of ‘critical projects’. The portfolio of critical projects are those designated for additional executive oversight, and are the focus of this study.

1.8 The BBC’s list of critical projects changes over time as new projects start and existing ones are completed. We used the list of eight critical projects that the BBC had at March 2015 (Figure 3).1 The projects are designed to:

develop new ways of providing services that serve the BBC’s audiences better;

replace outdated technology and business processes with modern, integrated systems that serve content-producing areas and corporate functions better;

modernise the BBC’s estate so that it is fit-for-purpose, supports new ways of working and meets audience needs better, while disposing of surplus space; and

improve the way the BBC contracts for services to provide greater flexibility and value for money.

1.9 BBC reporting shows that the forecast cost of seven of the eight critical projects that we examined was £885.1 million at the end of February 2016.2 Appendix Three provides further information on the BBC’s estimates of the costs and benefits of each project.

Our previous coverage of BBC projects

1.10 The BBC has had some success in delivering major projects in the past. In April 2013 we reported that it had successfully completed the complex challenge of relocating some of its vital services to Salford without disrupting them.3 We found that it had made good progress in setting out the benefits it expected to achieve. Factors contributing to this success included focusing on efficiency so that the project could get the most out of the BBC’s resources, setting clearly defined targets, and being quick to adapt to changing needs.

1.11 The BBC’s Digital Media Initiative, in contrast, exhibited weaknesses in project management. In January 2014 our memorandum on the BBC’s management of the Digital Media Initiative, a technology-enabled transformation project, identified failings in project delivery.4 This project had aimed to allow BBC staff and partners to develop, create, share and manage video and audio content and programming on their desktops. The BBC’s Executive Board had approved the final investment case for the project in April 2010. The Board cancelled it just over three years later, in May 2013, after concluding that £98.4 million of the £126 million the BBC had spent on it had been wasted. Our report concluded that a number of weaknesses had contributed to this failure:

The BBC had not appointed a senior responsible owner to act as a single point of accountability and had not coordinated the different parts of the project.

Confusion about what each stage of the project would deliver made it difficult to track what progress had been made and what more still needed to be done to complete the project.

Reporting arrangements were not fit for purpose. The BBC did not provide timely or clear reporting to the Executive Board or the BBC Trust on progress against plans, the cost of completing the project or the benefits.

The Executive Board did not scrutinise the project sufficiently. For more than a year, the project was not subject to any audit or assurance reporting beyond reports prepared by the BBC’s project management office. The Executive Board did not recognise the severity of the issues in the reports that it received.

The BBC did not revisit the business case, despite significant changes to the project’s timetable and projected benefits.

1.12 In the next part, we examine how far the BBC’s approach to managing its critical projects portfolio has addressed the lessons from past projects. We also consider whether the BBC uses the critical projects portfolio to help it monitor progress towards achieving its strategic vision.

1 A ninth critical project (BBC Store) was being undertaken by a commercial subsidiary of the BBC. We do not have rights of access to examine activities carried out by the BBC’s commercial subsidiaries, and that project was therefore excluded from our study.

2 These figures include operating costs: Digital Delivery and Archiving (6 years); Playout (10 years); Newsrooms Computer System (12 years); Smart (5 years); and Aurora connectivity contract (10 years).

3 Comptroller and Auditor General, The BBC’s move to Salford, National Audit Office, May 2013.

4 Comptroller and Auditor General, Memorandum on the BBC’s Digital Media Initiative, January 2014.

Part Two

Performance and assurance for critical projects

2.1 This Part examines:

the reported performance of the BBC’s critical projects portfolio;

the action the BBC has taken to strengthen its assurance arrangements for critical projects following the cancellation of the Digital Media Initiative;

the extent to which performance reported to the BBC Executive and BBC Trust presents a transparent and consistent picture of performance; and

the extent to which the critical projects portfolio is being used to track progress towards the BBC’s strategic vision.5

Performance of critical projects

2.2 The BBC has rated its overall confidence in delivering each project. It applies a ‘red’ rating when delivery appears unachievable, and ‘red-amber’ when delivery is in doubt. It uses ‘amber’ for projects that have significant but resolvable issues. The BBC rates projects as ‘amber-green’ or ‘green’ where it considers successful delivery to be probable or highly likely.

2.3 The BBC’s ratings show that in February 2016 it rated delivery of six of the eight projects to be ‘probable’ or ‘highly likely’. Delivery for one project (Aurora) was rated ‘feasible’ and one project (MyBBC) was ‘in doubt’ (Figure 4). The delivery rating for MyBBC was amber-red in February 2016 due to action needed on the benefits realisation plan, the target operating model, and data privacy and security. The rating report noted that the delivery of the audience-facing features and increased numbers of users were encouraging, and that given strong progress on benefits and user recuitment, delivery confidence was likely to improve. In March 2016 the BBC informed us that it expected the outstanding issues for MyBBC to be resolved quickly. The BBC separately rated its confidence in achieving planned benefits for each project. It rated benefits for seven of the eight projects as ‘probable’ or ‘highly likely’ to be delivered successfully, and ‘feasible’ for one (E20) (Figure 4).

Strengthening project assurance

2.4 Recent projects have been subject to new project assurance arrangements in the wake of the cancellation of the Digital Media Initiative. The changes announced included:

from December 2013 critical projects started reporting more often to the Executive Board. As the principal decision-making body, the Executive Board has overall responsibility for overseeing the delivery of critical projects. The BBC Trust receives quarterly reports on the performance of critical projects;

from October 2013 the BBC introduced a requirement that all critical projects should have a single point of accountability; and

from December 2013 the BBC introduced a requirement that all critical projects should have an integrated approvals and assurance plan. These plans show when approvals and reviews will take place during the project’s lifecycle.

2.5 In addition, the BBC strengthened its project management office’s role in scrutinising and assuring projects. The project management office has nine staff with experience of project delivery and training in project management methodologies. It is responsible for managing the BBC’s critical projects portfolio, helping teams to deliver their projects, checking that projects are being managed well and building project management capability within the BBC. Since the end of 2013, the project management office has reviewed and challenged information on performance from project teams before it is submitted to the Executive Board and the BBC Trust. Figure 5 summarises roles and responsibilities within the BBC for the oversight and delivery of critical projects.

Timeliness

2.6 Our examination indicated that the BBC has increased the frequency and timeliness of reporting to the Executive Board. The Executive Board now receives reports on the performance of critical projects monthly, rather than quarterly as before. The BBC has also reduced the time taken to get performance information to the Executive Board. Our report on the Digital Media Initiative found that between January 2010 and March 2013 the Executive Board received critical project reports, on average, 66 days after the end of the period covered by the reports. More recently, in the period October 2014 to September 2015, this had fallen to 27 days. Figure 6 illustrates recent reporting trends.

2.7 We identified examples where the Executive Board had used these reports to respond quickly to emerging problems, such as on the project to replace outdated ICT and business systems for finance, procurement, training and human resources. For example, in August 2014 the steering group for this project identified that technical problems had put at risk plans to launch new systems for finance, procurement, human resources and training. The Executive Board received a report the following month. As a result, the Executive Board revisited the business case for the project and approved a proposal to delay part of it. This is an improvement on reporting weaknesses identified previously on the Digital Media Initiative. Our 2014 report found that problems on the Digital Media Initiative were not reported for six months at a critical point in the project.

Transparency of reporting

2.8 We examined whether routine reporting to the Executive Board and the BBC Trust gave a clear and consistent view of project performance. We would expect reports to reflect agreed budgets and milestones, provide a clear picture of any changes in performance from month to month, and be consistent with underlying data.

2.9 Monthly reporting to the Executive Board and quarterly reporting to the BBC Trust on critical projects includes information about schedules, costs and benefits. In all but one case, reporting to the Executive Board and the BBC Trust provided a clear statement of the approved budget and the BBC’s latest estimate of the cost of completing each project. However, in one case, monthly reporting on the total estimated cost was incomplete because the costs reported to the Executive Board only covered one component of the ongoing work, not the cost of all ongoing activity (Figure 7).

2.10 Reporting to the Executive Board and the BBC Trust generally gave a clear account of delays against the most recently approved schedules. As Figure 8 shows, five of the eight projects had experienced delays, and one project delivered early. In the case of the End-to-End Digital project and the MyBBC project, the BBC reported changes to individual milestones by exception, and did not clearly show the impact of changes on final milestones or project costs.

2.11 The main impact of delays has been to delay the realisation of benefits. In only one case (Smart, which aimed to replace and integrate systems used for finance, procurement, human resources and training) did costs increase significantly, from £39 million to £55.7 million, as a result of delays during the implementation phase. In April 2015 the BBC reported that it expected to achieve financial benefits of £49.9 million across the whole project, compared with the £37.5 million it expected in the May 2013 business case. In the case of one project (Aurora) the BBC expects to deliver increased benefits as a result of changing its delivery approach, which included moving the completion date back.

Assurance

2.12 We would expect the BBC to get independent assurance at key stages in the project life cycle that the elements required for successful delivery are in place and operating effectively. Obtaining an independent and informed view helps to reduce the chances of failure, promote the conditions for success and increase the likelihood that the project will achieve its intended outcomes cost-effectively.

2.13 The BBC announced the following changes in 2013 to strengthen its assurance framework for critical projects:

Integrated assurance and approvals plans

In 2013 the BBC introduced a mandatory requirement for all critical projects to have an integrated approval and assurance plan. These plans are designed to show the points in the project life cycle when the project team will need to seek approval to proceed to the next stage. They also show the assurance activities that the team plans to carry out, the resources that will be needed and the purpose and expected outcomes of the assurance. The BBC’s internal guidance for project teams states that independent assurance is provided by the central project management office, internal audit or third parties.

Single point of accountability

The BBC announced a requirement in March 2014 for all critical projects to have a single point of accountability, responsible for delivering the project and for ensuring it achieves the planned benefits and outcomes. The single point of accountability chairs the project steering group.

Assessing whether projects are likely to succeed

In October 2013 the BBC gave its project management office a direct role in reviewing project performance and assessing the likelihood of successful delivery. The project management office holds monthly challenge meetings with project teams and reviews their assessments of delivery confidence. The Executive Board and the BBC Trust assess delivery confidence at key stages of the project life cycle as part of reviewing and approving business cases. Internal audit or third parties can provide a further source of assurance.

Integrated assurance and approval plans

2.14 All eight projects we examined had integrated assurance and approval plans. BBC internal audit reported in March 2015 that the BBC’s approach to integrated assurance and approvals plans was ‘satisfactory’. It found that the assurance process was largely successful and that project teams had a reasonable understanding of the importance of assurance activities. However, it also found that:

several plans included assurance activities as ‘placeholders’ without a clear assessment of the scope or purpose or a clear connection to project activities for imminent assurance activities;

the BBC’s approach to reviewing and endorsing plans across the portfolio was inconsistent. For example, some project teams circulated their draft plans to the project management office and internal audit for feedback. Others applied more limited quality assurance; and

project staff did not have a shared understanding of the process for creating plans or how these integrated with business case proposals.

Single points of accountability

2.15 Our review of the Digital Media Initiative project found that, because the project did not have a senior responsible owner, differences between the project team and the intended users of the new system were not resolved. Project staff and the project management office should know who is ultimately accountable for the project. This is important for clear decision-making, and ensuring that problems (when they arise) are raised with the right people, and reduces the risk of the BBC repeating the mistakes that led to the failure of the Digital Media Initiative. It should also be clear who is ultimately accountable for delivery from the integrated assurance and approvals plan, and all main approval documents, for the purpose of providing internal and external assurance.

2.16 In March 2014 the BBC introduced new internal guidance on project sponsorship. The guidance states that the sponsor, who is also the chair of the project steering group, is the single point of accountability for ensuring that the project achieves its agreed benefits and outcomes. The projects we have examined have used a number of terms to designate sponsorship, including ‘project sponsor’, ‘business sponsor’ or ‘programme sponsor’, and, where the sponsor is a member of the Executive Board, ‘executive sponsor’.

2.17 The guidance required that all critical projects have a single point of accountability, and in most cases it was clear from our review of project documentation who the project’s single point of accountability was. However, in two cases, this was less clear from the project documentation.

MyBBC

Project documentation for MyBBC did not delineate sufficiently between the responsibilities held by senior people within the project. Several project documents named the ‘business sponsor’ as the single point of accountability, although the BBC informed us that the ‘executive sponsor’ was the single point of accountability, and provided us with evidence that suggested the ‘executive sponsor’ had chaired the project steering group:

the investment case for the project named the ‘executive sponsor’ as single point of accountability in the summary and the ‘business sponsor’ as single point of accountability in the main document;

monthly reports to the Executive Board, which are intended for the board to provide assurance on project progress, identify the ‘business sponsor’ as the single point of accountability; and

early integrated assurance plans, which were introduced to provide clarity on assurance arrangements and should state the main responsibilities for the project, name the ‘business sponsor’ but did not mention the ‘executive sponsor’ at all.

In August 2015 the BBC clarified responsibilities. The BBC produced an updated integrated assurance and approvals plan, which demonstrated the split of responsibility between the ‘executive sponsor’ (and single point of accountability) and the ‘business sponsor’ (reporting to the executive sponsor).

End-to-End Digital

End-to-End Digital brings together a number of component IT projects (shown in Figure 7) with the intention of managing dependencies and integration. The components of End-to-End Digital went through separate assurance processes. The BBC designated a single person, at Executive Board level, as accountable for delivery of End-to-End Digital, but it was not clear from the documentation what the project encompassed and therefore what this accountability encompassed.

Once the major procurement activities on the project were completed in April 2015, the BBC took the project off the critical project list and transferred senior responsibilities for each component project to relevant teams across the organisation. The project included the Playout re-procurement, which is projected to  secure £42.8 million in savings over ten years, compared with the previous contract for a tape-based service.

Assessing the likelihood of successful delivery

2.18 Stakeholders need to know whether projects are likely to be completed as planned and achieve planned outcomes. Since October 2013 the BBC’s project management office has helped to achieve this by assessing each project on whether it will be delivered successfully (the delivery confidence assessment). To make these assessments, the project management office uses written reports from project teams, monthly challenge meetings and what was agreed in the most recently approved business cases.

2.19 The project management office upgraded its delivery confidence assessment for six of the projects we examined during the 12 months to September 2015. This indicates that risks to delivery were being managed actively. However, sometimes the BBC improved delivery confidence by adjusting the project scope. For example, confidence in delivering Smart improved from ‘red’ (successful delivery appears unachievable) to ‘amber-green’ (successful delivery appears probable) in March 2015, after the Executive Board approved proposals to reduce the project’s scope and delay the target completion date by more than two years.

2.20 Since October 2014 the project management office has given the Executive Board a separate assessment of whether planned benefits are likely to be achieved (its ‘benefits confidence’ assessment). In our 2010 report on the BBC’s management of three major estates projects, we recommended that the BBC should produce detailed benefits realisation plans for its projects.6 These should include measurable targets and performance indicators based on assessing the benefits set out in the business case. Our review of the critical projects indicated that, in most cases, the BBC reported against quantified benefits targets. However, for MyBBC reporting did not give a clear account of whether benefits were likely to be realised (Figure 9). This made it difficult to provide a robust assessment of benefits confidence:

MyBBC

The BBC did not define benefits for MyBBC until late in the project. MyBBC was set up as an agile project, which intended to scope benefits and deliverables as the project progressed. The BBC started work on MyBBC in early 2013 and the Executive Board signed off on the “overall strategic direction” of the project in May 2014.7 The BBC informed us that the Executive Board releases budget on an annual basis against evidence of capabilities delivered. By the end of 2015 MyBBC had delivered a number of tools to improve audience experiences, including: the ability to sign into BBC online services across different devices, and to pause an iPlayer programme on one device and resume watching on another; personalised iPlayer and BBC news and sport recommendations; and notifications for users based on their preferences including weather, travel and sport updates. However, it was not until January 2016, over two years into the project and one year before the project is due to complete, that the BBC was able to demonstrate that MyBBC was measuring project success with clearly defined benefits. The BBC expects that the Executive Board will approve a benefits plan for the project in April 2016.

Portfolio management

2.21 A portfolio is a collection of projects that are managed as a group to achieve strategic objectives. Portfolio management involves prioritising project proposals against strategic objectives and making trade-offs between projects by reallocating resources between them. It requires standardised metrics to allow stakeholders to compare the performance of the projects within the portfolio and to assess the portfolio’s performance as a whole.

2.22 Internal BBC reporting refers to critical projects as a ‘portfolio’ and the BBC announced at the end of 2013 that it planned to manage projects as a “joined-up strategic portfolio”. Figure 10 sets out the original intended aims of the critical projects portfolio, as documented by the BBC’s project management office. These aims contain elements of portfolio management, such as optimising benefits across the portfolio through trade-offs.

2.23 Our review indicated, however, a lack of clarity about whether the BBC was managing critical projects as a portfolio. Our work suggest that the BBC achieved some, but not all, of its portfolio aims, as set out in Figure 10. BBC senior staff acknowledged during our study that they does not always manage the critical projects as a portfolio. The ‘portfolio’ was often treated as a list of individual projects that need enhanced oversight because of their individual importance.

2.24 Selecting projects for inclusion in the critical projects portfolio is an important decision, as it determines which ones receive enhanced assurance and scrutiny by the Executive Board and the BBC Trust. Changes to the composition of the critical projects portfolio are flagged to the Executive Board quarterly, but the Executive Board does not formally review or approve the selection of projects. This decision is taken by the BBC’s Managing Director of Finance and Operations, based on the advice of the BBC’s project management office. The BBC Trust has no role in deciding which projects are included because this is an operational decision for management.

2.25 Since October 2014 the BBC’s project management office has used a scale to score the strategic importance, complexity and risk of projects. This informs decisions about which projects to add to the portfolio. Most of the projects we examined were established and added to the critical projects list before the BBC developed this framework. In September 2014 the project management office identified five projects which the BBC could consider adding to the critical portfolio pending further assessment. One (HR Transformation) was added in February 2015 and a second (BBC Studios) in October 2015. The remaining three (BBC Monitoring, BBC Three and the Northern Ireland Headquarters) were not added to the portfolio. The BBC was unable to provide us with any documentation recording how it reached the decisions it did. The BBC informed us that HR Transformation is crucial to support transformation across the BBC, which merited inclusion in the portfolio at that point in time.

2.26 The BBC prepared a diagram linking its projects to its 2015-16 objectives (Figure 11). This showed that critical projects were supporting its four strategic objectives.

2.27 The BBC’s project management office is responsible for identifying the cumulative impact of change resulting from the critical projects and identifying interdependencies between them. It provides a quarterly annex to its monthly report for the Executive Board on portfolio-level issues that identifies general issues with completing or resourcing projects, and how the performance of individual projects affects other projects.

2.28 Our work indicated that the project management office was monitoring inter dependencies between projects in terms of their potential impact on timescales. Day-to-day management of inter dependencies is devolved to individual project teams, but where inter dependencies pose a risk to successful project delivery the BBC reports on these in its monthly reporting to the Executive Board. For example, the BBC reported on how delays to the Smart project risked causing delays in the W12 project through its routine reporting on W12 to the Executive Board. The BBC also reports on project-wide interdependencies in some of its quarterly reporting. This includes reporting potential demands on the availability of scarce skills that might need to be shared across more than one project.

2.29 Our review suggested that the BBC could do more to assess how the performance of the portfolio is contributing to the delivery of its strategic vision. The technological changes that the BBC is implementing are intended to enable it to become a more integrated business. As part of its vision, for example, it is aiming to work more closely in partnership with other organisations, make more use of locally generated and user-generated content, as part of its desire to be more open. As a result, projects will increasingly need to provide infrastructure that supports delivery of the BBC’s overall vision, and is therefore fully integrated with other parts of the BBC operation. While the BBC has managed interdependencies between projects in terms of how they might impact on delivery timetables, it has paid less attention to whether the portfolio will deliver those facets crucial to the delivery of the overall BBC vision.

2.30 Strategic portfolio management requires standardised metrics to allow the costs and benefits of different projects to be prioritised and compared on a consistent basis, and to allow trade-offs to be made. Monthly reporting on the BBC’s critical projects uses project-specific metrics for realising costs and benefits that are not always directly comparable. Reporting on the critical projects portfolio does not show the total cost, benefits or cumulative risk to delivery for the portfolio as a whole.

5 Appendix Four provides individual assessments for each project of performance, reporting and assurance arrangements.

6 Comptroller and Auditor General’s, The BBC’s management of three major estate projects, National Audit Office, January 2010.

7 BBC approval papers to the Executive Board.

Appendix One

Our audit approach

1 This study examined the BBC’s management of its critical projects. We reviewed whether:

the BBC’s critical projects portfolio supports the BBC’s vision; and

the BBC’s project management and assurance arrangements enable it to deliver its projects successfully and enable its Executive Board to provide adequate oversight.

2 We applied an analytical framework with evaluative criteria that considered whether the BBC is managing its critical projects portfolio effectively. We drew on previous work on major project management across government.

3 Our audit approach is summarised in Figure 12 and our evidence base is described in Appendix Two.

Appendix Two

Our evidence base

1 We reached our conclusions on the BBC’s management and oversight of critical projects after analysing documentation collected between April 2015 and February 2016. The majority of our review was conducted between April 2015 and September 2015, and our overall findings are based on documentation and interviews from that period. We updated forecasts for all projects in February 2016, and reviewed core information on projects where updates impacted on findings (for example, on MyBBC benefit realisation). Our audit approach is outlined in Appendix One.

Document review

2 We reviewed documentation provided by the BBC project management office to understand:

the quality of project management guidance available to teams;

the approvals process for large projects;

the critical projects portfolio selection process;

the reporting process on large projects; and

the skills and capabilities within the project management office.

3 We reviewed project approvals documentation for the eight licence fee-funded projects in the critical projects portfolio in April 2015. We excluded one project from the review as this was funded by the BBC’s commercial activity. Our view of project approvals and assurance information allowed us to understand:

whether projects had complied with the project management office’s expectations for the approvals process; and

the assurance processes in place for each project.

Analysis of performance data

4 We analysed performance data reported to the Executive Board and compared these with investment cases and other data sources provided by the BBC. This analysis allowed us to understand:

the reported performance of projects during the reporting period;

the BBC’s estimates of the costs and benefits of each project; and

the reliability and transparency of information provided to the BBC’s Executive Board.

Interviews

5 We carried out semi-structured interviews with staff in the BBC’s central project management office to understand:

how the role of the project management office has evolved;

skills and capability within the project management office;

approvals and assurance activity undertaken by the project management office; and

the provision of central guidance and training for projects teams across the BBC.

6 We also carried out semi-structured interviews with BBC staff in each of the eight projects we reviewed to understand for each project:

the rationale;

what the project is intended to achieve and its expected benefits;

performance to date; and

the assurance and reporting processes in place for each project.

Appendix Three

Performance of the critical projects

Appendix Four

Project summaries

In this Appendix the ‘forecast/actual’ figures for costs and dates, plus the BBC confidence ratings, are as at February 2016, unless otherwise stated.

Newsroom Computer System

This will replace an existing newsroom system with a new one to maintain quality, keep pace with industry change and improve efficiency. It aims to provide an integrated news management system for preparing scripts and setting the programme running order. It is intended to enable journalists at the scene of stories to upload content, access information and contribute to stories more effectively.

Project performance and reporting

Monthly reporting has provided the Executive Board with a clear high-level assessment of progress against the lifetime cost and target completion date. Project documentation shows that the BBC expects to deliver the project within the approved lifetime cost, despite overspending during the start of the project. It expects to complete the project four months later than planned. This was reported to the Executive Board in the monthly reports. The BBC’s latest forecasts show that the project will deliver £40 million in financial benefits (from reduced running costs). This is double the estimate in the business case.

Assurance

The integrated assurance and approvals plan for this project sets out the main elements of assurance, including roles and responsibilities, the name of the sponsor, an integrated assurance timeline and a summary of assurance activities.

E20 (replacement of the EastEnders set)

This project will replace the external film set and core infrastructure for EastEnders at BBC Elstree with a new set on the existing site.

The BBC had carried out four separate studies which explored options to re-build the EastEnders set between 2007 and December 2012. Between December 2012 and December 2013 the BBC undertook detailed planning work on design and cost options for E20. This planning work resulted in the BBC Finance Committee agreeing a business case to start the E20 project in December 2013, with an expected completion date of August 2018. In July 2014 the BBC conducted a cost review and found that inflation in construction costs had increased their forecast of overall project costs. In October 2014 the project produced a feasibility report outlining a revised design and construction approach, which would enable the project to deliver within the original overall budget. In October 2015 the BBC approved a final business case, which put the delivery date as October 2020. In March 2016 the majority of the programme was at the design or procurement stages.

The existing set was built in 1985 and has passed the end of its useful life. The set is to be replaced because film technology has advanced beyond the set’s capability and because of health and safety issues. The BBC plans to enlarge the set to provide new locations.

Project performance and reporting

Monthly reporting on the project has provided the Executive Board with a high-level account of performance against time and cost. A deterioration in the project’s status to amber-red was reported to the Executive Board in November 2014. This deterioration resulted mainly from the escalation in potential costs which occurred before contracts were let, and for which there was insufficient project contingency. The project was put on hold, pending the Executive Board approving a revised business case. The revised business case went to the Executive Board in July 2015. The BBC expects to complete the project in October 2020, 26 months behind schedule but within the original budget.

Assurance

The integrated assurance and approvals plan for this project sets out the main elements of assurance including roles and responsibilities, the name of the sponsor, an integrated assurance timeline and a summary of assurance activities.

Wales Broadcasting House

This involves designing and building a new BBC broadcasting centre in Cardiff for BBC Wales, co-located with S4C. It aims to improve capability and deliver efficiency savings by reducing space and providing modern technology in a new purpose-built building with integrated systems.

Project performance and reporting

Reporting to the Executive Board and the BBC Trust on the project has generally provided a clear account of overall performance against time and cost. The BBC expects to complete the project in November 2019, thirteen months later than planned. Reporting to the Executive Board indicates that risks to the timetable were reported in a timely manner. The BBC reports that, despite a thirteen month delay, in the forecast completion date, it will deliver the project within budget and achieve the planned benefits. This report includes an approximate, rather than exact cost of the project because contracts have yet to be finalised.

Assurance

The integrated assurance and approvals plan for this project forms part of a larger control manual. The control manual sets out the project structure and roles and responsibilities, and identifies the sponsor. The manual contains an integrated assurance timeline, which states who the project expects to undertake assurance and at what point. The project documentation does not provide detail about what this assurance should encompass, or what will be involved.

W12

This project involves relocating staff from parts of the BBC’s estate in West London to other locations, including Manchester and Birmingham, and selling or subletting vacated space.

Project performance and reporting

The BBC completed the programme early, partly because it reduced the scope of the project and did not vacate the lighthouse building as planned. The BBC had considered a third phase of the project, to close Media Village entirely, but it no longer plans to do this. Reporting shows that the BBC expects to achieve financial benefits of £1,256.1 million, which exceed the approved financial benefits in the business case of £1,135 million. Monthly reporting on the project has provided a clear high-level account of overall performance against time and cost.

The BBC’s approved budget for phase two of the W12 project is £38.8 million, but this includes the underspend of £12 million from phase one which was moved to phase two after phase one was completed. Therefore, the total approved cost reported here is calculated based on the final cost of phase one and the approved cost of phase two. This approach avoids double counting the funding which was moved between phases. The BBC have underspent by £4.6 million across the two phases when this is taken into account.

Assurance

The integrated assurance and approvals plan for this project describes the assurance arrangements but provides limited details about external assurance. The plan sets out the main elements of assurance including roles and responsibilities, the name of the sponsor, an integrated assurance timeline and a summary of assurance activities.

Aurora

This project aims to procure and integrate IT services across the BBC. It is intended to move the BBC from a single-supplier to a multi-supplier model for IT services, coordinated by an in-house service integration and management function.

Project reporting and performance

Monthly reporting on Aurora has provided a clear overview of overall costs and schedules based on revised baselines. The BBC did not estimate financial benefits at the outset of the project because the benefits depended on the outcome of the procurement process. The BBC now expect that the project will achieve a benefit of £279.8 million. The project is two years behind the original target completion date of April 2015, but the BBC considers that it is on track to complete it by the revised target date of April 2017. At the time of our review, the BBC was reviewing its schedule and cost forecasts against proposals to include BBC Worldwide in the project.

Assurance

The integrated assurance and approvals plan describes the different levels of assurance that the BBC will use. The plan includes clearly planned and provisional activities set out for December 2014 to December 2015. The BBC has sought external assurance for Aurora at clearly defined stages of the project within specific timeframes.

MyBBC

This project aims to create a set of nine capabilities for use by BBC online services including iPlayer and the BBC news website. It is intended to allow the BBC to collect more accurate data on audiences and provide programmes that reflect individual user preferences. The project uses an agile methodology.

Project reporting and performance

Monthly reporting to the Executive Board and quarterly reporting to the BBC Trust has not given a clear view of progress and what more needs to be done. The BBC was able to demonstrate that it was tracking performance against defined benefits in January 2016, more than one year into the implementation phase of MyBBC. The main metric used to report on benefits until this point was the number of registered users. However, it changed the baseline and its target several times, and did not report how many users had registered. In most months the BBC reported only on interim deadlines, and not on the impact on overall deadlines. This made it difficult to track progress. The BBC informed us that it hoped to have a full benefits plan signed off by the Executive Board in April 2016.

Early project documentation for MyBBC did not delineate sufficiently between the responsibilities held by senior people within the project. Several project documents named the ‘business sponsor’ as the single point of accountability, when the BBC informed us that they regard the ‘executive sponsor’ as the single point of accountability:

the investment case for the project named the ‘executive sponsor’ as single point of accountability in the summary and the ‘business sponsor’ as single point of accountability in the main document;

monthly reports to the Executive Board, which are intended for the Board to provide assurance on project progress, identify the ‘business sponsor’ as the single point of accountability; and

early integrated assurance plans, which were introduced to provide clarity on assurance arrangements and should state main responsibilities for the project, name the ‘business sponsor’ but did not mention the ‘executive sponsor’ at all.

In August 2015 the BBC clarified the project responsibilities. The BBC produced an updated integrated assurance and approvals plan, which demonstrated the split of responsibility between the ‘executive sponsor’ (and single point of accountability) and the ‘business sponsor’ (reporting to the executive sponsor).

Assurance

The assurance plan includes an indicative timeline but does not give specific dates for carrying out assurance activity. The summary of scheduled activity does not identify clearly when external assurance will take place. MyBBC has undergone some external assurance and an internal audit review.

Smart

The BBC established this project to replace and integrate business systems and software used by finance, procurement, human resources and the BBC Academy to reduce costs and improve processes.

At the beginning of the project, Smart consisted of two integrated projects: ‘Finance and Procurement’ and ‘Human Resources and Learning’. After changing the project plan, the BBC separated ‘Finance and Procurement’ and ‘Human Resources and Learning’, after which ‘Human Resources and Learning’ was moved to the HR Transformation project. Finance and Procurement was delivered in January 2015.

Project reporting and performance

Reporting on Smart has provided a clear overview of changes to the status of the project. The Executive Board was informed of a deterioration in the project’s status to red in September 2014. The Executive Board approved a proposal to separate ‘Finance and Procurement’ from the ‘Human Resources and Learning’ component of the project, and to delay the target completion date. From that point forward, the BBC reported separately on the cost and schedule performance of the two components. The BBC transferred the Human Resources and Learning component to another project, which enabled it to improve the rating of Smart from red to amber-green in April 2015.

The BBC reported against a ‘total original budget’ of £55.7 million for Smart. However, this was a revised budget, which was £16 million higher than the £39 million implementation budget the BBC originally approved. Some of this increase in cost, amounting to £6.3 million initially plus £3 million over five years, was picked up by the suppliers. Changes to the project cost were approved by the Executive Board in November 2013. The BBC reported in April 2015 that it expected Smart to achieve financial benefits of £49.9 million across the whole project. This was higher than the £37.5 million it expected in the May 2013 business case.

Assurance

The integrated assurance plan for Smart sets out a timeline and details for the main assurance activity, including internal and external assurance. We found that it had not been updated since May 2013. The project has now been closed, but remaining elements (Human Resources and Learning) are being developed through another project, HR Transformation.

End-to-End Digital

This programme is intended to enable digital production, archiving and playout of BBC content to move from videotape to digital. It includes a number of sub-projects comprising a mix of in-house development and procurement from third parties. Major components include:

Digital Delivery and Archiving – the service which will receive and archive digital files (previously tape) and enable the BBC to search and retrieve programmes from their complete back catalogue. This part of End-to-End Digital includes elements that were part of the Digital Media Initiative project.

Playout – the system which will deliver programmes as branded television services. It is a “destination for digitally created media content”.8

Project performance and reporting

We found some inconsistencies in the BBC’s reporting on time and cost. The BBC did not use the same baseline for reporting on costs in all months. For example, it reported against a baseline of £16.5 million for the Digital Delivery and Archiving component and £1.5 million for the Playout component in September and October 2014, but reported against a total cost of £25 million to £50 million in April and May 2014. Between November 2014 and April 2015, the BBC reported against a total cost of £16.3 million. The £16.3 million, which was reported as a total cost for End-to-End Digital only, included part of the Digital Delivery and Archiving component of the project.

The BBC’s reporting on schedules was incomplete. BBC reporting to the Executive Board did not provide an estimated delivery date and did not always give details for constituent components. In some months the BBC reported an expected delivery date and in other months it reported against interim milestones without stating how these would impact on delivery. The BBC did not report on benefits for the End-to-End Digital project in the 12 months to April 2015, although it rated benefits confidence as amber-green during this period. The BBC expects that the re-procurement of the Playout contract will save the BBC £42.8 million over ten years.

Assurance

The BBC provided a detailed assurance plan for End-to-End Digital, which showed an assurance timeline and details of assurance activities. End-to-End Digital has been subject to external assurance. Project documentation was not clear on the extent to which accountability for the programme included accountability for the delivery of significant components of the programme, including their expected benefits.

8 BBC internal approval documentation.