Improving Project Capabilities in the Public Sector

: A Case Study within the UK government

Abstract

Over the next ten years in the United Kingdom, there is an estimated total infrastructure investment of over £775 billion, including nearly 660 projects, programmes, and other investments. However, due to the projected large-scale expenditures, the demand for project delivery professionals is set to increase within the public sector, resulting in major projects at risk of paying a premium for the skills and capability gap. Therefore, improving project capabilities within the UK public sector is important to enhance project delivery performance. While several studies in the private sector have investigated improving project capabilities, recently, more attention has been paid to the literature within the public sector. However, there is less research on how public sector organisations can improve their project capabilities.
This study used a sectoral case study with multiple evidence points within the UK public sector. The study used qualitative data from interviews, photo-elicitation, observations, and documents available publicly or provided by respondents and applied thematic analysis to analyse and respond to the research questions.
The study used the UK capability landscape designed from the document analysis to identify the project routines and the capabilities involved, from policy formulation to implementation. The research findings also highlight how the UK public sector's organisational structure supports routine and explores their effectiveness in facilitating best practices within the UK public sector. The research finding also highlighted the role of the project leader in ensuring previous project knowledge and experiences are transferred within the project environment and across the project delivery community while encouraging interactions with other project stakeholders.
This study provides two main contributions to knowledge based on the research findings. The conceptual framework was developed based on the existing literature to improve project capabilities within the public sector. This framework builds upon the 'Project Capability Building' model, 'Organisational Routines' theory and the interrelationship between the Dynamic and Project Capabilities model. While these models were initially applied to private sector organisations, the models were adjusted to fit the public sector context for this research. The UK capability landscape was also developed based on government policy documents and the project delivery capability framework (PDCF) to identify where capabilities exist within the public sector.

Date of Award	Oct 2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Brighton
Supervisor	Nick Marshall (Supervisor), Aaron Gain (Supervisor) & Steve Reeve (Supervisor)