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As Figure 2 illustrates, the external consultant recommends a total budget that is expected to cover the consequencesof the identified uncertainties. The allocated budget shall represent the cost that has 85% probability of being met(referred to as “P85”), minus the identified potential for reductions. The reserves are, however, not expected to beused, and specific rules for the management of reserves have been established. The budget allocated to the projects,or the executing government agency is usually the most probable final cost (P50). The reserves were not managedby the project manager, and usually not even by the executing government agency. Use of the reserves must beapproved by the responsible ministry. Reserves are not intended for expanding the scope of the projects, but solelyto cover unexpected expenses.The size of the reserves recommended by the external consultants could be established for 45 of the projects. Onaverage the external consultants recommended a 9 % reserve (interpreted as a mark-up above the expected cost).Viewed as a share of the total allocated budget the recommended reserve is 8 % on average. In 30 projects theexternal consultants directly recommended a budget managed by the subordinate agency, and in 20 projects a projectmanager cost target.A closer look upon the recommendation on how the reserves should be managed reveals that the subordinate agencyon average is pointed out as responsible for 94 % of the total allocated budget. The recommended expected cost ison average 92 % of the total budget, which means that the subordinate agency is granted somewhat more than theexpected cost. In the 20 projects where a project manager cost target was recommended, the analysis shows that theproject manager is pointed out to manage less than the expected cost (85 % on average). This is supported by thefact that during the collection of the data it was observed that in many cases where a specific project manager costtarget was not directly recommended. Instead, it was frequently mentioned that a reasonable level would be in theP45-P50 area. This was expected to launch a cost focus that ultimately would result in cheaper projects.4.6 QA1 - societal and stakeholder perspectivesAfter presenting empirical results related to the preparations and execution of the Quality-at-entry regime, we nowcontinue to a brief analysis of a new aspect of the regime. After the first round of four years, the Quality-at-entryRegime has been revised and new consultant contracts were awarded in June 2005. In the revision of the regime, anew part has been added that includes an external assessment of different project concepts, termed QualityAssurance 1 (QA1). Five years of trailing research served as input to the revision of the Quality-at-entry regime.Results from this research are presented by Olsson et al (2004) as well as Magnussen and Samset (2005). Accordingto Magnussen and Samset (2005), QA1 is established based on a belief that in order to achieve substantialimprovements of project performance, the basic concepts of projects shall be analyzed, not only the final proposal,as is done in QA2.At the time of writing this paper, no QA1 have been carried out and this short description is based on the descriptionof the intentions of QA1. QA1 include an analysis of the prerequisites for a proposed project, a need analysis,analyses of the documented strategy and requirements and finally, a comparison of alternative concepts. Animportant element of QA1 is that at least three alternatives shall be analyzed, including a reference alternative whichonly includes maintenance and other actions needed to continue to use existing resources. QA1 has a wideperspective and focuses on the future users and society as a whole. The purpose is to identify the right project. Thesocietal effects and the interest of different stakeholders are key criteria in the comparison of project alternatives tobe carried out in QA1.5. DiscussionThe analysis indicates that flexibility was seen as one of the major problems with the governmental projects prior tothe Quality-at entry regime. As discussed in the introduction section, the engineering tradition in projectmanagement theory then proposes a stronger emphasis on the front-end phase in order to prepare the projects as wellas possible. In this perspective, one of the objectives of the Quality-at-entry regime was to reduce the flexibility ofthe projects. The purpose was to make sure that the project is well defined, both in terms of project scope andorganization.The strong emphasis on scope change management in the QA2 reports indicates that changes and flexibilityprimarily are treated as something to be minimized, or at least to have a strict regime for. A structured approach to14