Public Sector Project Management Conference

Bridgewater Hall
Manchester
12th May 2009

In early May we attended the fourth Public Sector Project Management Conference at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester.

The Conference examined the need for a structured approach to Project Management, which assures resources are deployed effectively, projects and programmes are monitored against key outcomes and successful delivery achieved.

This event was set against a backdrop of key Government policies and initiatives, which impact directly on the Project Management agenda. Local Government is now under increasing pressure to provide efficient service delivery with The Comprehensive Spending Review of 2007 (CSR07), demanding that local authorities create cash-releasing efficiency savings of £4.9 billion in the three-year period to 2010-11, equating to an annual efficiency target of 3% for each of the three next years.

One of the ways in which authorities are looking to achieve these targets is in the transformation of service delivery, with well-executed Project Management always vital to success.

Our work with a large variety of public sector organisations who are responsible for a diverse range of products and services has shown us that the challenges they face are always unique to them but often have similar themes.  We’ve worked with all kinds of public sector organisations including local Councils, Authorities, the NHS and charities.

This year we found that delegates were particularly interested in keeping their skills up to date. We think this is because the public sector is under extreme pressure to deliver services and delegates want the reassurance that they’re able to perform to the best of their ability by honing their skills.

An example of work we’ve recently done is with Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) at both Board level and Clinical Board level to deliver the requirements resulting from the Darzi recommendations and the impact of World Class Commissioning. These initiatives necessitate large scale changes to working practices in the NHS, and the resulting increases in the types of service and the location in which services are offered. It’s vital that everyone working on these programmes understands their roles and responsibilities and have the right skills to deliver what is expected of them.

We’ve also been helping PCTs with the Tackling Health Inequality programme, whose aim is to ensure that everyone has access to adequate medical and social care. Care Pathways are part of this programme and are designed to ensure there is an appropriate response to patient’s needs.

The impact of this programme leads to another change in the structure of PCTs and their relationships with Acute and Mental Health Trusts, Ambulance Services, the voluntary sector and the local authority. It has big implications for how the PCTs organise themselves and the timetable for delivery is both tight and non-negotiable. We talked to delegates about how this work can most effectively be defined, agreed and implemented using MSP™ (Managing Successful Programmes), underpinned with a strong project management ethos.

There was also a lot of interest in the P3O and M_o_R at the event.