Case study list

Welsh Assembly Government

01/10/2008

The Welsh Assembly Government (the Assembly Government) restarted the project in 2002, with revised arrangements for managing the project and a different procurement route, through to the opening of the building in 2006. The Auditor General for Wales issued two reports on the first phase of the project. (Accommodation arrangements for the National Assembly for Wales, November 2000 and The National Assembly's new building: update report, November 2002)

In his final report in 2008, the Auditor General found that the Assembly Government and its project team did a good job when the project restarted in 2002, and broadly succeeded in meeting the project's time, cost and quality objectives.

In summary, the Assembly Government's success in managing the restarted project so well was a consequence of:

• careful reappraisal of the project after stopping it in 2001 including learning the lessons of similar major capital projects;
• setting a clear objective to achieve cost certainty;
• choice of a procurement route that was consistent with the cost and quality objectives;
• effective management of the procurement process;
• effective project management and governance arrangements;
• instilling a sense of shared objectives in the whole project team.