London Borough of Southwark takes control of costs
Friday 26 Nov 2008
London Borough of Southwark has implemented a new PRINCE 2-compliant online system from ProjectProgress.com to allow senior management and key stakeholders to remotely manage live financial information relating to their £40 million spend on capital building projects, including schools and building projects.
In the past management relied on numerous spreadsheets and payment systems to try and keep track of financial information. However, it was difficult to manage forecasted spends, overspends, actual costs and budgets, and individual Project Managers would have to use more than one system.
It was decided that there was a pressing need for a new system and the key requirement that was highlighted, was for it to facilitate the monitoring of budgets against forecast expenditure. Now within a single interface, Project Managers have a tool to actively manage the budgets that they are responsible for and be confident that they are acting within the authority given to them by senior project stakeholders. The live financial and programme information in the system can be accessed online by any authorised user, a feature which cuts the need for time-consuming reports to be prepared on a regular basis.
The system provides a combination of time and cost information and enables accurate forecasting of spend that remains live as programme dates change and actual spend is made.
The system is now being used by Project Managers to forecast expenditure and manage exceptions effectively. Other benefits include the easy reporting of cashflows and other financial information.
The system has just gone live: original budgets are in the system and now actual spends are being monitored, forecast, and real live expenditure captured. Any changes to approved budgets are easily highlighted and can then be signed off.
Project Managers are already reporting that they have more time to focus on managing and delivering projects, rather than spending a lot of time interrogating multiple systems to put together reports for other managers.
As time goes on, Southwark expects the system to be able to improve the estimation of costs and programmes at the outset of a project and to be able to identify where efficiencies can be made.