Project exception report presented by the Senior Business Improvement Officer (Adam Colby) and the Assistant Director, Communications and Communities (Rob Leigh).

The Senior Business Improvement Officer presented the report. 

The project had been due for completion in October 2010.  This target had not been met and although the programme was now live, various work streams had not been completed.  The reasons for this failure were explained.  The current position of all work-streams was set out at Appendix 1 to the report and the benefits assessment in days per annum was set out at Appendix 2.

The Principal Officer Licensing and Business Support reminded Members that in her original report in 2009 she had set out the requirements to comply with EU Directives with regard to an on-line self-service system and an on-line service register.  These requirements had not yet been met.

There were still some benefits to achieve and Members were asked for their views on the way forward.  Three options were provided. 

1.      Do nothing

Accept the issues with the Licensing team in anticipation that these may improve. Determine who will be responsible for the outstanding deliverables within the programme and who will implement these.

2.      Close the project

Close the programme and formally complete a project closure document.

This will not meet the programmes original aims and objectives and the business case on which it was started.

3.      Close the project and migrate outstanding deliverables to STPs

Migrate the outstanding deliverables into Service Team Plans. These can be revisited at such time as resources permit this to be finalised. In some instances the remaining deliverables could be completed in isolation by the team should the team be static in its resource.

The expected benefits could still be realised.

The Chairman did not want to lose the work already done but he did not want the Business Improvement Team (BIT) to spend any more time on the project.  The Assistant Director, Communications and Communities advised that the main requirement was to complete the data migration, which could be done without support from the BIT but which would require the release of funds to employ temporary staff to complete the job by the end of March. 

The Head of Finance thought that funds could be found from under-spends in other areas of the budget.

Recommendation

The implementation of option 3 – Close the programme and migrate outstanding deliverables into Service Team Plans.

It was RESOLVED that:

(1)                 Option 3 of the report would be implemented; the project would be closed and outstanding deliverables would be migrated to the Service Team Plan; and

(2)                 Funds would be identified to employ temporary staff to complete the data migration.

The Chairman left the meeting.

Mr Claussen assumed the Chair.

Once the data migration was completed the Corporate Projects Manager would work with the Assistant Director, Communications and Communities to program work on the other outstanding work-streams.  Mobile working, Partnership working and trading would all be progressed then. 

The Principal Officer Licensing and Business Support was asked how long it would take to set up a partnership and she advised that it would take 12 to 18 months.  She thought that she would need to start scoping potential partners within the next three to four months or risk missing the window of opportunity.  She was therefore tasked with producing a report setting out future marketing strategy.<1>

The Senior Business Improvement Officer asked if it would be feasible to explore the possibilities of working in partnership with ARP.