Spotlight - HMRC and Joined-up Assurance

Delivering change and transformation in HMRC

HMRC's major change and transformation programmes are grouped together in a portfolio known as the Departmental Transformation Programme (DTP). They are designed to deliver the Departmental Vision and are key to our efforts to improve services to customers and achieve business efficiency savings.  Managing risk effectively is critical to their successful delivery. 

One way to manage programme and project risk and to improve confidence in successful delivery is through rigorous, independent assurance.  To this end, the DTP Assurance Team is actively promoting a more joined-up approach to the way the range of departmental assurance available to programmes is provided and used.

Joined-up assurance

'Joined-up assurance' enables greater visibility of all assurance activity across the portfolio, and facilitates coordinated effort and a sharing of plans, experiences and thinking.   It encourages better-targeted provision of different types of assurance - OGC Gateways, audit studies, technical reviews etc - to programmes and projects.  At the same time, it helps programme teams develop their understanding of assurance planning and how to maximise the value of the assurance services they receive.  SROs and senior stakeholders also benefit from a fuller picture of independent opinion of the health of their programmes.  For the wider organisation, joined-up assurance represents a valuable source of 'lessons learned' insights that can help inform and strengthen overall PPM professional capability.

Building an assurance community

Building a self-sustaining joint assurance community in our department is a challenging task, but we have made encouraging progress on our journey so far. 

Our first step was to set up the Joint Assurance Forum (JAF) over two years ago.  This now well-established group brings together various members of HMRC's assurance provider community¹ to promote greater awareness of each other's activities and to improve the quality and cost-effective delivery of assurance services to programme and project customers.  Through the Forum, members have regularly shared plans to improve and streamline their individual assurance operations, reducing unnecessary process and removing duplication. 

We have greatly welcomed the active participation of OGC colleagues at JAF meetings, and have found the recent OGC lessons learned bulletin 'Effective project assurance' (PDF, 60KB) particularly helpful in promoting key messages. 

To complement JAF, we have recently established the Programme Assurance Special Interest Group (PASIG) to serve as a networking forum for the customers of assurance and review services.  Its membership includes programme management and project office representatives from almost all DTP programmes.  Topics for consideration at future PASIG meetings will include different approaches to assurance planning, identifying good practice and closer consultation and dialogue with assurance providers.  

Joined-up assurance products

The products we have so far developed to support our joined-up assurance agenda include a comprehensive portfolio-level view ('Swimlane') of all assurance activity, programme by programme.  In addition, we have, working with our colleagues on JAF, developed a model showing where different types of assurance intervention occur throughout the typical lifecycle of an IT project. 

We have also produced a Joint Assurance Report drawing on both the analysis of our portfolio 'Swimlane' data and the findings from our survey of assurance carried out in several individual programmes.  Going forward, we intend to build on this work by identifying and documenting major trends, generic themes and recurring issues in order to help inform our wider corporate 'lessons learned' and PPM guidance initiatives.

For more information on joined-up assurance please contact: ros.newman@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk

¹Representatives include Internal Audit, Information Management Services, ASPIRE (HMRC's strategic IT partner), as well asOGC and HMRC's Centre of Excellance