EY-Intelligent-Client-strategic-sponsorship

Introduction
The UK is on the cusp of a golden age of infrastructure investment
with around £400bn of investment set out in the National
Infrastructure Plan for the ten years to 2022 alone. Yet the needs
of society are changing and we need infrastructure to meet our
needs for tomorrow, not just rely on what the Victorians built.
The case for this level of expenditure is strong and enjoys cross-party
political support, some would say for the first time in generations,
but this level of ambition comes with significant challenges.
Aside from the obvious question marks around securing funding
and supply chain capacity, there are wide-spread questions around
the ability of government and private sector organisations to act as
effective clients in their sponsorship and control of the investment
to ensure value for public money and effective outcomes.
There are good examples of the UK getting it right in recent
history on major infrastructure programmes such as Heathrow
T5, the London Olympics and Crossrail. However, according to the
National Audit Office, one-third of government-funded programmes
and two‐thirds of all programmes still suffer overruns in budget
and schedule. The next big challenges include High Speed Two
(HS2) Limited, Thames Tideway, the New Nuclear and Roads
Investment programmes.
The government recognises the need for greater control and
has established the National Infrastructure Commission and the
Infrastructure and Projects Authority to strengthen central oversight
and monitoring, in addition to existing bodies such as the Major
Projects Authority and various regulators. There is also increasing
use of technology and innovation to empower project delivery,
building on successes in privatised utilities and the use of Building
Information Modelling (BIM) at Crossrail. However, there have
been recent calls for government to become a more ‘Intelligent
Client’, from within political circles and leading independent
professional bodies.
EY wants to help our clients become more effective in their
sponsorship and oversight of large complex programmes to help
realise their infrastructure ambition. In this document we discuss
the context and challenge, the benefits of Intelligent Clienting,
the conditions for success and commercial imperatives. We also
introduce EY Power & Utilities Maturity Model & Architecture
(PUMMA) model which enables rapid programme mobilisation and
fast start-up, along with a suggested road map for how to achieve
the standing of an Intelligent Client.
Source: PUMMA is EY ‘Power & Utilities Maturity Model & Architecture’, a proprietary
approach to programme set-up.
“The Government must become
a much more Intelligent
Client to help infrastructure
projects succeed. It has a lack
of skills to bring projects to
the starting line in an efficient
way. The reality is that all too
often the Government cannot
come up with a specification
or an engineered solution that
allows industry to respond, and
that builds both risk and cost
into projects.”
Stephen Hammond
Former Rail Minister and Chair of the All-Party
Parliamentary Group on Infrastructure
“How can we become
better customers?
How can we engage the
public and communities in
infrastructure?
How can we drive the
use of innovation and
technology in everyday
infrastructure delivery?”
Institution of Civil Engineers
Presidential Thought Leadership discussion
on the role of infrastructure in UK productivity,
chaired by Sir John Armitt and attended by
industry leaders from both the public and
private sector.
1 Intelligent Client Refining the sponsorship model for complex programme delivery