Letter from Sharon Fairweather, Director of Internal Audit and Assurance, Scottish Government
Dear Mr Leonard
I am writing in follow up to my letter of 21 January 2021 to the Convener of the Public Audit and Post-Legislative Scrutiny Committee and also to provide my routine, six monthly update on major IT projects.
We continue to see a rise in the volume of projects registered with the Digital Assurance Office with the number of major projects also steadily increasing. There are currently 501 active projects recorded, of which 33 are classed as major projects and a further 21 are potential new major projects. These account for 72% of the total costs recorded and are the areas we continue to prioritise for mandatory assurance. A full breakdown of the projects by estimated whole life costs is shown at Annex A.
I thought the Committee might also find it helpful to see a breakdown of assurance review outcomes for financial year 2020-21 which is set out in Annex B.
In her letter of 23 December 2020, the previous Convener requested information about the:
• financial impact of delays on IT projects due to COVID-19
• amount of extra resources put into developing IT projects during COVID-19
In my response of 21 January 2021, I advised that this information is not held centrally, with financial monitoring of project budgets managed within individual organisations or Scottish Government business areas. I undertook however to commission this information for major IT projects and provide it alongside our next routine major project update. This information is attached in Annex C.
Finally, Annex D provides an overview of the technical assurance activity conducted on each of the major projects. Projects have only progressed to the next stage on successful completion of the mandatory review requirements.
As noted in previous updates, technical assurance may be only one of the independent assurance activities carried out on a particular project or programme.
I hope this is helpful but I would be very happy to discuss in more detail.
Yours sincerely
Sharon Fairweather
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