Recommendation 23

HM Government Accepted

5. PAC conclusion: We remain to be convinced that HMPO’s digital transformation programme will be completed by 2025. 5. PAC recommendation: The Department should set out, as part of its Treasury Minute response, what actions it has taken to address each of the recommendations from the Infrastructure and Projects Authority’s August 2022 review. It should also explain what contingencies they are putting in place should there be further delays to the digital transformation programme. 5.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Recommendation implemented 5.2 The recommendations from the Infrastructure and Projects Authority’s August 2022 review, alongside the latest update, can be found in the table below: 27 Recommendation Update The Senior Responsible An independent review of DAP was completed in September Owner (SRO) should 2022 which confirmed a number of areas of good practice in commission an independent Agile development. review of the DAP Programme by experienced All actions in response to the recommendations have been Agile experts to report by progressed. This includes separating the responsibilities of mid-September and the DAP live service team and the DAP development team, complete the critical path which has yielded greater efficiency. activity. Critical Path activity has been completed to plot the remaining milestones, dependencies, and assumptions, with a projected end date of April 2025. To ensure some contingency, we have worked with our supplier of legacy services to ensure that these services will remain available beyond April 2025, if required. Options for de-scoping the Programme have been reviewed and the delivery team are working towards a Minimum Viable Product. The SRO (Senior The SRO has worked with Programme Director (PD) to Responsible Owner) should consider opportunities for mitigating operational cost and risk. ensure that the programme considers short term One intervention is the introduction of the Digital Design Suite: opportunities for mitigating this co-locates operational staff with software developers for operational cost and risk, building and testing. The Digital Design Suite puts an considering interim tactical emphasis on preventing passport applications returning to solutions as well as legacy systems, to accelerate the move to DAP. changes to the overarching delivery approach of the Continued collaboration between the Programme and agreed activities within the operational colleagues on the refreshed Critical Path is Programme. ongoing, which will help to identify opportunities for introducing further tactical solutions. All decisions are governed via organisational transformation prioritisation, and relevant Boards attended by Senior Civil Servants. This ensures that the examination of impacts of any proposals on resources working to deliver the Programme are understood, so that no delays are caused. 28 The SRO should bring A new project team has been set up to co-ordinate the together the Business provision of Business Intelligence information to HM Passport Intelligence (BI) project and Office. the Operational Leaders to determine the long-term Its key deliverables are: strategic solution for BI; and the tactical measures • Developing its plans to ensure HM Passport Office required in the interim, and understands what is being delivered, by when, and what it how and by whom they will will do to assist in managing the business. be delivered. • Captures all known elements of BI being delivered in Projects and Live Services within its plans • Using information provided by Workstreams to support tracking all known dependencies • Facilitate a project Steering Group to overcome obstacles to delivery In addition, a restructured governance approach was put in place in February 2023 to focus on risk and issue management for all BI Workstreams, and to report on progress against plans. The SRO, supported by a The PD has introduced fortnightly Workstream Review strong Programme Director meetings. These two-hour sessions bring together all project (PD) and Project Manager, managers delivering into the Passports Transformation should ensure that risks and Programme, to track progress, surface risks and issues, and issues are rigorously unblock barriers to delivery. discussed, at the right time, with a clear set of mitigating A dedicated monthly risk forum has been established to actions agreed. A culture of manage the most significant risks and issues associated with holding people to account the Passports Transformation Programme. for non-delivery at key board meetings should be the norm. The SRO should hold an ‘all A two-day ‘all attend’ in-person away day was held January attend’ in-person 2023. Programme Away Day within a few weeks of the The event was jointly chaired by Programme Director and PD arrival. Digital Services Lead. The key outcomes of the event were a full understanding of dependencies, clear ways of working, and complete understanding of the C