This is the first report of its kind, pulling together a summary of central government and NHS projects’ performance against cost, time and quality targets. It reports progress against targets for all projects completed between 2002 and 2007 and a sample of 15 projects currently in progress. It also provides an assessment of project management and governance for a sample of projects and identifies lessons to be learned for future projects.

Key messages from the report are:

• In general the achievement of cost and time targets improved significantly as projects progressed.
  
• Early time and cost estimates at project approval stage were too optimistic for many major projects. Performance against cost and time estimates is better after contracts are awarded, as plans are more certain and risks clearer.
  
• Most completed projects have successfully delivered the required roads, hospitals and other assets. However, there is scope to use better measures of quality.
  
• Project management and governance arrangements of individual projects are broadly effective, although room for improvement remains.
  
• A more strategic approach to managing the programme of capital projects could improve value for money.
  
  

We completed our case study reviews between October 2007 and February 2008.  Inevitably, projects will have moved on since we completed our examination and the Scottish Government is continuing to work on improving project planning, management and control.   However, we believe that the recommendations in the report are generally relevant and should be of assistance to the Scottish Government and public bodies responsible for delivering projects. 

In addition to the report itself, we have prepared a more detailed Good Practice Checklist for leaders and senior decision-makers in public bodies who are responsible for major projects and a high-level summary of our assessments for 20 case study projects. We shall publish all of these reports on our website www.audit-scotland.gov.uk

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