Recommendation 5

Some FCDO high-profile estate projects have run significantly over time and budget. FCDO carries out large scale estate capital projects to refurbish or replace its buildings, but some recent projects, such as in Washington D.C. and Ottawa, have run significantly over time and budget. This has been due to issues such as industrial action, unexpected problems in buildings requiring remediation and the impact of COVID-19. FCDO conducts lessons learned activities for all its projects but has stopped recording them centrally as its portfolio management office prioritised other work. FCDO plans to deliver around 120 capital projects in future and has confirmed that central collation of lessons learned activity will restart soon. FCDO is also taking other actions to improve its project management, including introducing a design authority with the responsibility for checking project designs and implementing gateway reviews to improve external scrutiny of projects as they are developed. recommendation FCDO should immediately restart centrally collecting and analysing lessons learned from its estate capital projects, to ensure it has appropriate oversight of project risks and can manage delivery effectively. FCDO should update the Committee in its Treasury Minute response on its progress, including the impact of its new design authority and gateway review processes.