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The Senior Responsible Owner (SRO) ensures the project achieves its intended benefits and outcomes as outlined in the business case. The SRO is accountable for the project’s success and provides strategic direction to the Project Director or Manager. Typically, the SRO comes from a leadership position in the business area where the project’s benefits and outcomes are delivered.
| Responsibility | Detail |
|---|---|
| Leadership | Champions the project and takes ultimate authority and accountability for its delivery. Provides clear leadership and strategic direction to the project director or project board throughout the project. Delegates responsibilities, sets clear limits, and agrees on performance criteria with the project director. The SRO is an active leader who fosters an open and honest culture. |
| Stakeholder management | Influences and manages the environment where the project outcomes will be delivered, including relationships with key stakeholders, business owners, and other project sponsors. Builds effective relationships with strategic stakeholders to secure their commitment to the project's objectives and benefits and manage all interdependencies effectively. |
| Benefits management | Ensures the project delivers the benefits and outcomes of the business case. Oversees and drives the realisation of benefits and ensures post-project plans and monitoring are in place to sustain benefits in the long term. |
| Governance | Establishes robust and efficient governance to ensure the project is governed responsibly. For a Government Major Projects Portfolio (GMPP) project, the SRO is personally accountable for delivery and may be called by Select Committees to explain the decisions and actions taken to deliver the project. |
| Business case | Owns the business case, ensuring that the value of predicted benefits outweigh the costs and risks. Addresses significant concerns about the business case or value for money with the relevant accounting officer. |
| Reviewes and assurance | Ensures appropriate assurance reviews are established and followed. Monitors and controls the progress of a project at a strategic level. |
| Business change and implementation | Ensures the project's strategic direction aligns with any changes in political or business priorities. Flags any changes to agreed project benefits and update the business case accordingly. |
| Risk and issue management | Manages strategic risks and issues in the operating environment and is aware of all high-level risks affecting the project. Ensures appropriate mitigation plans are developed and implemented. |
| Resource management | Responsible for the appointment of the Project Director, defining the responsibilities and authority of the role. Secures additional resources as needed to deliver the project. |
| Budgeting and cost control | Secures the budget in line with the business case throughout the project's life. |
| Digital and data | Accountable for project data. Uses data insights for high level decision making ensuring risks, issues and opportunities are identified early and addressed strategically. Fosters a culture of data sharing and ensures that project teams utilise data and digital tools to track project progress and outcomes. |
| Sustainability | Ensures that environmental and social considerations are embedded in programme design, procurement and monitoring processes, and complies with expectations set out in the SRO appointment letter. |
None: No knowledge and no experience.
Awareness: Basic knowledge and limited or no experience. You understand how it can be applied. You can describe the benefits and importance. You may have applied it in a low complexity project under supervision or assisted others in delivering it.
Working: Working knowledge and practical experience. You have a good understanding of this competence. You have applied this independently in low complexity projects and/or under supervision in more complex projects.
Practitioner: Detailed knowledge and significant experience. You have a deep understanding of this competence. You have applied this independently in medium and/or highly complex projects. You advise and may supervise others in the delivery of this competence. You can adapt your approach to meet the requirements of the project.
Expert: Expert knowledge and experience. You are considered an expert within government and in the wider profession. You have applied this competence in multiple complex projects. You have been responsible for developing unique variations to suit specific situations. You champion capability development in this area.
| Competency area | Level |
|---|---|
Commercial and procurement
The ability to work with commercial colleagues to procure goods and services and manage contracts effectively to deliver the work.
|
Practitioner |
Planning
The ability to define the fundamental components of the work in terms of its scope, deliverables, time scales, resource requirements and budget. It also includes the production of broader plans incorporating risk and quality to provide a consolidated overview of the work.
|
Practitioner |
Resource management
The ability to identify, profile, secure and manage the resources required to deliver the work.
|
Practitioner |
Budgeting and cost management
The ability to estimate costs, produce a budget and control forecasts and actual spend against budget.
|
Practitioner |
Risk and issue management
The ability to systematically identify and monitor risks and issues, planning how to mitigate or respond to those risks and issues and implementing the responses.
|
Practitioner |
Business change and implementation
The ability to integrate the solution into operations ensuring that activities are planned and completed to enable the business to implement the change and realise the benefits.
|
Practitioner |
Governance
The ability to clearly define roles, responsibilities and accountabilities and establish controls and approval routes appropriate to each stage of the work to monitor progress and compliance.
|
Expert |
Stakeholder engagement
The ability to systematically identify, analyse and communicate with stakeholders, using appropriate channels, to ensure all those impacted by the change are engaged, taking account of their levels of influence and particular interests.
|
Expert |
Assurance
The ability to establish, plan and manage reviews at appropriate points through the life cycle to provide confidence that the work can be delivered to the agreed outcomes and benefits within time, cost, quality, and other constraints.
|
Practitioner |
Business case development
The ability to prepare, develop, commission and update business cases to justify the initiation and continuation of projects in terms of benefits, value for money and risk.
|
Practitioner |
Benefits management
The ability to identify, value, plan and track benefits to justify investment and ensure the expected outcomes and social value are realised.
|
Practitioner |
Knowledge management
The ability to identify, share and promote best practices and lessons learned to create a culture of learning and good practice that supports continuous improvement to optimise project delivery.
|
Practitioner |
Digital and data
The ability to effectively leverage digital tools and data analytics for better project delivery outcomes. Combining an understanding of digital technologies with the ability to manage, interpret and utilise data to make informed decisions, improve efficiency and achieve outcomes and benefits.
|
Working |
Sustainability
The ability to incorporate environmental and social considerations into the strategic objectives of the work and to effectively identify, assess and manage these throughout the lifecycle, seeking to maximise benefits and mitigate negative impacts.
|
Practitioner |
None: No knowledge and no experience.
Awareness: Basic knowledge and limited or no experience. You understand how it can be applied. You can describe the benefits and importance. You may have applied it in a low complexity project under supervision or assisted others in delivering it.
Working: Working knowledge and practical experience. You have a good understanding of this competence. You have applied this independently in low complexity projects and/or under supervision in more complex projects.
Practitioner: Detailed knowledge and significant experience. You have a deep understanding of this competence. You have applied this independently in medium and/or highly complex projects. You advise and may supervise others in the delivery of this competence. You can adapt your approach to meet the requirements of the project.
Expert: Expert knowledge and experience. You are considered an expert within government and in the wider profession. You have applied this competence in multiple complex projects. You have been responsible for developing unique variations to suit specific situations. You champion capability development in this area.
| Competency area | Level |
|---|---|
Visible leadership
The ability to engage, motivate and coach others. To act as a role model and inspire and empower others. Aligned to the leadership Civil Service behaviour.
|
Expert |
Credible action
The ability to promote the wider public good in all actions and to act in a morally, legally and socially appropriate manner at all times. Challenges unacceptable behaviour. Aligned to the leadership Civil Service behaviour.
|
Expert |
Working with ambiguity
The ability to work in an environment of uncertainty and continual change. Able to feel comfortable making decisions and setting direction without having the full picture and re-focus as details emerge. Can apply knowledge and techniques to reduce ambiguity. Aligned to the making effective decisions Civil Service behaviour.
|
Practitioner |
Collaboration
The ability to establish and develop productive relationships with internal and external stakeholders, bringing people together to benefit the project. Aligned to the working together Civil Service behaviour.
|
Expert |
Influencing
The ability to influence, change and impact decisions with both internal and external stakeholders. Aligned to the communicating and influencing Civil Service behaviour.
|
Expert |
Conflict resolution
The ability to recognise, anticipate and effectively deal with existing or potential conflicts at an individual, team or strategic level. Aligned to the working together and leadership Civil Service behaviours.
|
Expert |
Inspiring others
The ability to create and present a compelling vision and set clear direction, that motivates others to work towards a common goal. Aligned to the leadership Civil Service behaviour.
|
Expert |
Resilience
The ability to adapt to changing circumstances and adverse situations whilst remaining calm, reassuring others and maintaining performance. Aligned to the delivering at pace Civil Service behaviour.
|
Expert |
Innovation
The ability to think of, research and apply new ideas and ways of doing things. Encourages and supports innovations from others, is willing to experiment and follow ideas through to implementation. Aligned to the changing and improving Civil Service behaviour.
|
Practitioner |
Culture change
The ability to plan, lead and effect positive cultural change, securing commitment and buy-in, and promoting a positive long term vision. Recognises when broader culture change is necessary to deliver a project. Aligned to the seeing the big picture, and changing and improving Civil Service behaviours.
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Practitioner |