Identity crisis

Projects are best delivered when the end game remains constant. Change the rules, the desired outcome or the timescale and costs inevitably rise as optimum results become harder to achieve. But when the political and economic landscape undergoes a drastic change, project managers can play a key role in mitigating the damage. At times like these the profession must rise to the challenge . . .

One of the biggest casualties of the new coalition governments programme of reform has been the cancellation of the National ID Card scheme.

Originally mooted as a way of combating terrorism after 9/11, it was soon being billed by Labour Ministers as an "entitlement card" to combat benefit fraud and illegal workers.

At the time of consultation in July 2002 the Home Office estimated the cost of the scheme would be between 1.3bn and 3bn the higher estimate would be for a card incorporating state-of-the-art iris or fingerprint recognition.

Always likely to prove unpopular, the scheme had a rough passage through parliament, suffering several notable defeats along the way before it was made compulsory for foreign nationals in November 2008.

However, less than two years later, the new government has announced its intention to scrap the scheme, rendering the 15,000 cards already in circulation next to useless and costing the taxpayer 5bn in the process although the London School of Economics said the true bill would be between 10bn and 20bn.

The decision to cancel the programme was justified on the grounds that it was an affront to peoples personal freedom.

Following the Queens speech on 25 May, Home Secretary Theresa May said: This bill is a first step of many that this government is taking to reduce the control of the state over decent, law-abiding people and hand power back to them.

With swift parliamentary approval, we aim to consign identity cards and the intrusive ID card scheme to history within 100 days.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg added: The wasteful, bureaucratic and intrusive ID card scheme represents everything that has been wrong with government in recent years.

By taking swift action to scrap it, we are making it clear that this government won't sacrifice people's liberty for the sake of Ministers' pet projects.

Wind-down

But what are the cost implications of scrapping such a massive project midway through implementation? And how can the project management community often pilloried when picking up the pieces after political decisions ensure a smooth and cost-effective wind-down?

The decision to cancel the card programme was heralded as a sure-fire way to save money which, considering the scale of debt across government departments, was always likely to win the populist vote.

According to Home Office figures, the move will save the taxpayer around 86m over the next four years once cancellation costs are taken into account. It will also avoid around 800m of ongoing costs over the next 10 years, largely recovered through fees.

A decision to cull a major project or programme is never that clear-cut.

Scaling back or winding down a major project or programme takes considerable skill and effort, and is a process that cannot be entered into lightly. All aspects of the original plan need to be revised, including traditional perceptions of how a project should operate and how it should be governed. The challenge therefore, is to effectively balance an understandable requirement for transparency, structure and the effective discharge of project oversight by senior stakeholders, with a more devolutionary, agile approach to project governance that is more likely to result in successful change.

Damian Riley a director at PricewaterhouseCoopers, which has considerable experience in working with public sector clients, says there are a number of ways in which programme and project practitioners can start to think differently about how to achieve this balance in practice, based on effective approaches emerging in current practice.

Above all, as project practitioners, we need to be willing to change our mindset in establishing appropriate governance structures. We need to be more willing to challenge and innovate, in order to support governance arrangements that are more likely to result in the achievement of change and the delivery of benefits.

He adds: Text book models of governance have a strong pedigree and provide an important reference point in the design and delivery of complex projects. But they are only a reference point; a healthy dose of pragmatism is overdue in ensuring truly effective project governance.

Unravelling the project

Since its initial stages, the ID card scheme has been heavily criticised due to the complexity of its integration with other government systems.

Its scrutiny by an independent group of advisors followed criticism of other large UK government IT-based programmes, most notably the multibillion-pound national programme to overhaul the NHS patient records system (NPfIT), which has been plagued by problems with suppliers and cost overruns.

This, says Paul Rayner of Logica, gives a small indication of the complexities involved. IT-based projects and programmes tend to be inherently more difficult since success requires so much more management of people and organisational politics.

There are other mitigating factors too. Data from ProgM, the APMs Programme Management Specific Interest Group, suggests that IT-based business change is the biggest single category of programmes; while a report in The Economist magazine estimated that about 40 per cent of all capital investment in the West is based on IT.

Paul adds: Large programmes of this type involve lots of stakeholder groups. A huge amount of time and effort will have been spent getting agreement amongst them and ensuring that their other plans and ambitions are consistent with the proposed programme. This will now all be largely wasted.

The human cost

There will be a reduction in staff numbers as a result of the scrapping of Identity Cards. This is in addition to the other efficiency savings IPS is making to contribute to budget reductions across government.

A Home Office spokesperson said: We are communicating with staff and union representatives about how this will happen. We will also be working very closely with suppliers to manage any impacts on them.

At the end of last month, we informed 60 temporary staff based in Durham that their contracts will be ended three months early. It is estimated this will save approximately 140,000 that will contribute towards budget reductions across government.

How the ID card programme breaks down:

Among those affected are several big-name IT suppliers awarded contracts under the UK Identity and Passport Service (IPS) strategic supplier group.

An Application & Enrolment contract was awarded to deliver new systems and processes to support the way applications for passports and identity cards are examined. The 10-year contract was awarded to Computer Sciences (CSC) in April 2009 at a value of 385m.

The National Biometric Identity Service contract was awarded to store and match biometric information in passports and identity cards in the future (e.g. fingerprints and digital photographs). This contract, which is worth 265m, was awarded to IBM in May 2009 for seven years with one three-year option to extend.

One further contract was signed to enable the initial launch of identity cards from 2009. The three-year contract was awarded in July 2008 to Thales UK Ltd at a value of approximately 18m.

Under the revised plans, elements of the contract with Thales that relate to ID Cards and the National Identity Register will be cancelled. IPS is currently negotiating with Thales to minimise exit costs in accordance with agreed contractual provisions.

The system and processes for passport and ID card applications were planned to be largely common and so the contract with CSC will not be directly affected by the cancellation of ID cards.

A Home Office spokesperson said: The cancellation of ID cards will have a limited impact on the contract with IBM, as much of the capability it delivers is required for IPS (passport) and UK Border Agency use. The majority of the contract will remain in place to build and operate the Asylum Fingerprint System replacement.