Recommendation 7

The Department said it was not being complacent, but acknowledged that even with the best team and governance arrangements it could assemble there was both considerable risk and a lot of work to do before ESN would be ready.16 Nevertheless, it was determined to ‘crack on’ with ESN and was confident it could solve the problems.17 While it acknowledged that optimism bias is a cultural issue in both the Department and wider civil service, and that it had been over-optimistic about ESN before, it claimed to have a better understanding now.18 But when we asked if it could reduce the risk, it acknowledged that it would not know until it found a supplier to replace Motorola.19 It acknowledged that ESN is its biggest, reddest and hardest programme in a portfolio “stuffed full” of very difficult programmes, and said it would be ‘brave’ to believe it had identified technical solutions for the entire programme.20