Collection

Portfolio management in government

Author(s): Infrastructure and Projects Authority and Government Project Delivery Function

Status: Approved for internal government trial

Formats: PDF

Published: 21 November 2022

How to manage, direct and sustain portfolios and portfolio management in government.

To support government departments and arm’s length bodies, the Infrastructure and Projects Authority and the Government Project Delivery Function has written this guidance, split into six modules and a covering introduction, and takes the Government Functional Standard for Project Delivery as its starting point. As such, it is relevant to all portfolios, whether managed as cross-organisational, organisational, functional or business unit level.

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Details

Portfolios across the civil service comprise the investment required for departments and arm’s length bodies to achieve their objectives. Through portfolio management, these organisations need to make decisions which enable the most effective balance of business change and business as usual while remaining within a specific funding envelope.

Many organisations will have more current and potential future initiatives than they can afford. Even if they can be funded, they do not have the resources or capacity to absorb all the changes implied, and some initiatives may have an unacceptable level of risk. They may also have too many projects, projects that do not add value or are not linked to strategic goals or an unbalanced portfolio.

Portfolios, then, are not just about managing individual projects and programmes. They are are a fundamental tool to oversee investment in the organisation’s business plan and their effective management and control are essential to ensuring overall value for money and maximising the successful delivery of government policy, strategy and objectives.

To support government departments and arm’s length bodies, the Infrastructure and Projects Authority and the Government Project Delivery Function has written this guidance, split into six modules and a covering introduction and takes the Government Functional Standard for Project Delivery as its starting point. As such, it is relevant to all portfolios, whether managed as cross-organisational, organisational, functional or business unit level.