Energy and Sustainability Portfolio

Assurance and design of governance controls for troubled portfolio.

The Challenge.

One Eighty Advisory were commissioned by a Local Authority to complete a series of status assessments for a portfolio of Energy and Sustainability projects. These projects were a mix of EU Economic Regional Development Fund and Innovate UK funded projects ranging from approximately £200,000 to £10m. 

Council Programme Assurance

The One Eighty Approach.

Our approach considered each projects performance against a number of key project management areas, such as governance, clarity of scope, progress against plan, financial monitoring and risk management.

To determine each project’s status, we met with key individuals, including senior management and the project team and reviewed significant amounts of pertinent project information, for example funding applications, logic models, match funding plans and progress reports etc.

Our work identified a number of systemic issues in relation to the Council’s governance arrangements for these projects, as well as serious issues within individual projects. For example, a 12-month delay to many pilot projects and a lack of clarity around where the required Council match funding for schemes would be obtained.

The End Result.

The output for this work was a management report, which set out a detailed action plan of the work required both at a Council portfolio and individual project level. Our key recommendations included the introduction of:

  • A governance framework, which ensures management are aware of issues and allows for timely management action;

  • Portfolio management, to ensure the team have the capability, capacity the required outputs as well as understanding project inter-dependencies;

  • Detailed match funding plans for all schemes to ensure they have sufficient funding and the ability to demonstrate their contributions; and

  • Detailed project plans in order to fully understand the delivery status.

As a result of our work the Council have immediately taken steps to improve the delivery of their projects and are in the process of tackling the specific project issues in order to avoid the significant reputational and financial risks materialising.

Our rates are extremely competitive, offering excellent value for money especially considering the significant financial and reputational cost of programme failure. Contact us today to discuss how we can help your programme.