“… There are currently 149 projects in the Government Major Project Portfolio, with a combined whole-life cost of £511bn and an expected spend of £25bn in 2015-16. Such projects require Treasury approval based on their size, risk and impact.
…The NAO said that nearly 80% of the Portfolio projects due to be delivered by 2019-20 were to either transform or change the way that services were delivered or accessed.
However, transformation programmes could present the greatest risk of failure and there was a need to balance ambition and realism in setting goals, it argued. “For instance, the Better Care Fund was a challenging initiative which ministers paused and redesigned after the early planning and preparations did not match its scale of ambition.”
The watchdog described progress in improving portfolio management as “disappointing”, with no single organisation having a view of the whole portfolio of government projects.
“The Portfolio provides increased assurance, and other central departments have an increased role in assuring, approving and improving quality of delivery,” the NAO said. “But an effective mechanism still needs to be developed for prioritising projects across government or judging whether individual departments have the capacity and capability to deliver them. The NAO has often reported on the difficulties caused for government projects by unrealistic expectations and over-optimism.”
Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, said: “I acknowledge that a number of positive steps have been taken by the Authority and client departments. At the same time, I am concerned that a third of projects monitored by the Authority are red or amber-red and the overall picture of progress on project performance is opaque. More effort is needed if the success rate of project delivery is to improve. “
East Devon Watch 
Having worked as a Programme and Project Manager in the Public Sector for more than a decade, I am not really surprised by this.
All public sector projects are supposed to be run using Prince2 project management methodology, the starting point of which is a Project Brief which outlines the overall goals of the project followed by a BUSINESS CASE. Without a net positive business case (which is thoroughly revisited a key gateway milestones), the project should not even get off the ground.
Of course, it is not just Central Government which runs projects without a sound business case. According to a FoI request, EDDC does not have any form of business case for the Knowle relocation.
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