Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps his Department takes to ensure that government projects are delivered on time and within budget.

All projects are ultimately the responsibility of individual government departments. However, with £400 billion in the Infrastructure Pipeline and £400 billion in the Major Projects Portfolio, the Cabinet Office has a central team, the Infrastructure Projects Authority (IPA), to support departments to deliver on time and within budget. The IPA provides expertise and practical help, a supportive environment to enable major projects to succeed, and manages an independent assurance process to ensure projects are delivered to time and within budget.

• IPA deploys expert commercial, financial and delivery support
• IPA delivers independent high quality assurance and oversight
• IPA develops standards, insights and tools, developing the project leadership and project finance professions
• IPA delivers key finance schemes (PF2 & guarantees) to enable key projects to proceed

The IPA works with all partners in infrastructure and major projects - government departments, project teams, HMT, Cabinet Office, and the private sector - to do this. The IPA reports jointly to HMT and Cabinet Office Ministers.