Report - Guardian

212 The LSE Identity Project Report: June 2005“There are five OGC Gateway Reviews during the lifecycle of aproject, three before contract award and two looking at serviceimplementation and confirmation of the operational benefits. Inaddition there is a repeatable Gate 0 for programmes, designed toconfirm the feasibility and viability of the initiative when set againstother corporate priorities and objectives. Further Gate 0 reviews laterin the life of the Programme can revisit and confirm the business case,the management of programme risks, the management of the portfolioof the projects, and the delivery of benefits.” 498These stages are as follows:Table 7 Gateway Stages and the Product Lifecycle, taken from NAO report “Improving ITprocurement”, 2004, p.15.The Home Office has undertaken most reviews of its systems to date. 499 The NAOconducted a study on the OGC’s activities and found that some progress was beingmade in government projects, but much remains to be done.It is important to note that the Gateway process was applied to the Criminal RecordsBureau case. The OGC raised questions about the readiness of the project to go live, butaccepted there was ‘no turning back’ and let the system launch regardless. 500 The outputof the Gateway review process on the Identity Cards projects should be scrutinisedclosely – and publicly – before the project is permitted to proceed.498 ‘Improving IT procurement: The impact of the Office of Government Commerce’s initiatives on departments andsuppliers in the delivery of major IT-enabled projects’, p.7.499 ‘Improving IT procurement’, p.18.500 ‘Criminal Records Bureau: Delivering Safer Recruitment?’, Report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, HC266 Session 2003-2004, February 2004, p.3.