Latest / Project Podcast / Crisis Talks – Joanna Rowland, HMRC
Transcript
- 0:01Welcome to the APM podcast. APM is the childhood body for
- 0:05the project profession. Hi, I'm Emma, defeated.
- 0:09The editor project apm's quarterly Journal this.
- 0:13Our crisis talk season of podcasts.
- 0:15I'm asking project professionals to share their stories of
- 0:17managing adapting and pivoting their projects through lockdown
- 0:21and now during this next phase, as restrictions are, he's, so
- 0:25thanks for joining me in this episode.
- 0:27We'll be meeting Joanna Roland director of Her Majesty's,
- 0:30revenue and customs. Covid-19 Response, Unit
- 0:33responsible for the Department's strategic approach.
- 0:36The pandemic. Joanna, is the senior
- 0:38responsible officer in charge of delivering the Chancellor's
- 0:41Flagship economic interventions. The job retention
- 0:44self-employment Income Support schemes as well as the new eat
- 0:48out help out and job retention bonus schemes.
- 0:51Joanna is also the head of the project delivery profession for
- 0:54a channel C and is a fellow of the association for project
- 0:57management. She's been at the very heart of
- 1:00the government's response to the pandemic.
- 1:02So it was a privilege to get some time with her to ask what
- 1:05it's been like to be in the thick of it.
- 1:08If you want a detailed blow-by-blow account of how
- 1:10Joanna approach the photo project, please watch out for
- 1:13y'all to miss your project which will be landing with you in the
- 1:16middle of September. I spoke to Joanna and early
- 1:19August just after the eat app to help out scheme launch.
- 1:23We pick up the conversation when she tells me a bit about what
- 1:26she was working on at the start of 2020.
- 1:32Joe, welcome. I'm not sure how you've managed
- 1:34to find the time to speak to me, but we're hugely grateful.
- 1:38Let's begin with. You.
- 1:39Tell me a bit about what you were doing at the beginning of
- 1:43the year. What projects are you working
- 1:44on? At the sort of 2020 which seems
- 1:47like a lifetime ago now? Sure.
- 1:49And it does seem like a lifetime ago.
- 1:51So 2020. I was leading making tax digital
- 1:55for business. That's hmrc's Flagship program,
- 2:00which is intending to And all tax registrations digital,
- 2:05collect all the information digitally, but also more
- 2:08importantly, help small businesses, particularly manage
- 2:11their tax Affairs, more easily. And how was that going at the
- 2:15time? It's going really well.
- 2:18In fact, since I've left and been doing something different.
- 2:22They've just announced the new phase where they'll start to
- 2:27mandate the use of digital technology for income tax
- 2:30registrations. So, so, it's picked up a lot of
- 2:34pace actually since I left, although it was busy at that
- 2:38time. So anything to do with the
- 2:40results of the projects, you've been working on as well at the
- 2:43moment. The success of those has that
- 2:45accelerated that those projects, one of the things working on
- 2:50these projects has really shown us is sometimes the limitations
- 2:54of the data we hold and certainly making tax digital has
- 2:59shown that the more Records. We hold the more instant access
- 3:05to information. There is the more responsive the
- 3:07tax system can be. So undoubtedly, it strengthened
- 3:12the business case for making tax digital covid-19 struck, I guess
- 3:17March maybe earlier for you, but can you tell us what it was like
- 3:21in the early days of the crisis? I got a call, I think on a
- 3:26Thursday night from my then boss to ask whether I would Go and
- 3:32Lead, one of the projects that was coming out of the
- 3:35Chancellor's office. That project was actually the
- 3:38self-employment Income Support scheme and the next morning.
- 3:42It emerged. There were actually two
- 3:44projects. The other one was the furlough
- 3:46scheme, as it's generally known, although it's their ctrs
- 3:51coronavirus job, retention scheme.
- 3:53Is its official name, had this phone call.
- 3:56I then by the Friday morning had a new boss, Melissa Tatton who's
- 4:01been A supportive. And it emerged, there was a
- 4:04third part to this role as well, which was to coordinate the
- 4:09whole of the response to coronavirus across the
- 4:12department. So it wasn't just to project
- 4:14manage the schemes. There was also quite a
- 4:17leadership challenge in in, just at the coordination.
- 4:21Everything from getting 67,000, people working from home to
- 4:26updating our policies and guidance and also to an extent
- 4:32Stopping some of the usual activity of the tax system, that
- 4:35just were not appropriate to do such as sending our compliance
- 4:39teams out to do home visits, Etc.
- 4:43So was it primarily about crisis management?
- 4:46Then there were a few elements in the early days that was
- 4:51certainly crisis management, but I think the first thing I
- 4:57recognize coming into the Rival, was actually this was going to
- 5:01stay with us for While. And in a way, the last thing we
- 5:05needed was Crisis management. And what instead what we needed
- 5:09was very controlled leadership and management of this being a
- 5:14project person through. And through, I love a bit of
- 5:16governance. We all do governance is your
- 5:19best friend. It keeps you in control.
- 5:22So one of the first jobs of that Friday, was to set up the
- 5:27governance structures both for the projects, but also the
- 5:31wider. Our organization to make sure
- 5:34that we could coordinate this in a way that was very controlled
- 5:39and not reactive or crisis management.
- 5:44Can sometimes mean that you know, you're all headless
- 5:47chickens and and and the high octane and and that generally
- 5:51doesn't drive the best decision making that said, the governance
- 5:55was kept light touch. So it was really important.
- 5:59But neither was there time for for Or meetings, so I needed to
- 6:06put in place the governance structure that was able to be
- 6:10highly adaptive really, really efficient fairly light touch but
- 6:16have a iron grip of control around our projects and
- 6:20responses. How did you prioritize things
- 6:24there? Because a lot of new things were
- 6:27kind of landed on your desk and as you mentioned the whole shift
- 6:31of working from I'm home. Plus those adrenaline-fueled
- 6:34days and also a lot of fear around what was happening.
- 6:39How did you manage to prioritize things so well, and how did you
- 6:44feel at the time? First of all, I I felt
- 6:48brilliant. It was, you know, it's what I
- 6:51love to do. You don't often get something so
- 6:55important, but such a blank canvas as well.
- 6:59All of this was brand new and needed setting up.
- 7:02Scratch. And that was an amazing
- 7:03opportunity and certainly a bit of a career highlight for me the
- 7:08priority it was it was risk-based.
- 7:12So clearly the chancellor schemes were the highest
- 7:15priority and the furlough scheme was the highest of that because
- 7:20it was the most needed for the economy.
- 7:24So we had only four weeks to get that one designed set up
- 7:30delivered and then operational. The governance to allow the
- 7:34department to take the weight of the work.
- 7:38But in a way that was coordinated, was the second
- 7:41highest priority for me. And then, to be really Frank
- 7:46about it. The rest was just really, really
- 7:49long hours. It's not the way you can work
- 7:52for long and it's not anything, I endorse but it was just
- 7:57necessary at that time. So I was 16 hour days was just
- 8:02The norm for the first few weeks.
- 8:06Tell me a bit about how the team came together.
- 8:09You wrote a really great feature for the Autumn issue project
- 8:14explaining in detail, the approach you took to the project
- 8:17and something that impressed me from that was the sense of
- 8:21collaboration, you know, with many different kind of
- 8:24stakeholders inside. And outside.
- 8:26Was that something that just came about?
- 8:28Spontaneously, you had something called ruthlessly simple, which
- 8:32sounds a brilliant idea but was it for?
- 8:36But she all had a very clear purpose in mind and kept things
- 8:40simple that they needed everyone to collaborate.
- 8:43There were three things that were very deliberate choices in
- 8:48those early days. So the first was to set up what
- 8:52I call a hub-and-spoke model. And this is where I literally
- 8:58grabbed from all corners of hmrc.
- 9:01Just a handful. I think no more than about 10 or
- 9:0415. Asked people to run the central
- 9:08project for see duress and then the equivalent for
- 9:12self-employment, but then we reached out across hmrc to get
- 9:18what I called accountable owners for all the different
- 9:21specialisms. So, you'd get somebody who
- 9:24specialized in compliance. You did someone who specialized
- 9:27in operating, our contact centers.
- 9:29You'd get a lawyer. You'd have obviously the very
- 9:32important, very talented, digital teams all Those
- 9:36accountable owners, were were responsible for doing their bit
- 9:40completely empowered, completely trusted, but they could not make
- 9:45decisions anywhere other than, as part of that Central project.
- 9:49If they were designing an element.
- 9:51They would need to come back to the project just to make sure it
- 9:53matches the other elements. So that was the first thing,
- 9:56this Hub and spoke model where the the people actually doing
- 10:01the delivery, we're empowered, but the control remained with
- 10:06the A central project was that of an approach you to used
- 10:09before in other major projects. I have in the past.
- 10:13Not with hmrc. I'm a great believer that
- 10:15projects should transcend normal structures and therefore not be
- 10:21pigeonholed into structures that they should work across an
- 10:24organization. Because that's where you get the
- 10:26whole organization. Partaking as head of project,
- 10:29profession for hmrc. It's been a long-running
- 10:32ambition of mine to set up projects in that way.
- 10:37And here was my chance. It was my opportunity, the, the
- 10:41other two elements to how we approach.
- 10:44This was the ruthlessly simple. That was actually a phrase
- 10:49coined by our CIO, very talented, man, and to whom a lot
- 10:54of the successes Duty and who certain what's his name, Mark.
- 11:00Denny. He was fantastic at keeping us,
- 11:04all on that principle of ruthlessly simple.
- 11:07And it meant that we did not get scope.
- 11:09Creep. What we did notice is in the
- 11:13early days, when four weeks to set up a major
- 11:17multibillion-pound scheme like this felt impossible, keeping.
- 11:21It ruthlessly simple was actually quite easy.
- 11:24People got the concept as we started to sort of, you know,
- 11:29make astounding leaps in progress.
- 11:32That's when people started to that sort of.
- 11:35Can you just syndrome? Started to Nippon Mark and I had
- 11:39to be all over that. And actually, that was our third
- 11:42principle. You need to bulldoze out the way
- 11:46the blockers and sometimes that is sometimes you know, it's a
- 11:53ask politely sometimes. It's actually just really quite
- 11:58assertive structures in place to make sure that you are not
- 12:03letting anything distract you from getting the job done.
- 12:06Done. How did you feel you daunted?
- 12:09Or were you excited in that four weeks, running up to the
- 12:14furlough scheme? And then of course, the self
- 12:17employment, scheme went live three weeks after that.
- 12:21I think I had every emotion that a human being could possibly
- 12:24have. It was I you know, it ranged
- 12:29from thoroughly, daunted, even terrified actually thinking, you
- 12:33know, how can the logic Of being able to do this successfully in
- 12:39such a short period of time. Sometimes just didn't stack up.
- 12:43Even though the evidence was thankfully, before us I had
- 12:48Elation excitement, you know, it was the whole Gambit of
- 12:53emotional response in that time that period of extreme crisis
- 12:59has passed a bit in business in general, but do you feel you
- 13:04bonded quite closely with the people you are working?
- 13:06Beyond that. It's somehow changed that level
- 13:09of collaboration. Oh, incredibly.
- 13:12Absolutely. Yeah.
- 13:13Really close. And there is people that I've
- 13:16never physically met. That's the other in credit
- 13:20because hmrc's such a massive organization.
- 13:22And of course, we had our suppliers capgemini as well as
- 13:26very close partners with us, and there are people that I had
- 13:31never actually physically been in the same room with that.
- 13:34Now feel like close friends because You bombed, everything
- 13:39was done at PACE, including, you know, bonding with friends.
- 13:44Yeah, it's weird, isn't it? Hopefully you'll meet them soon.
- 13:48Yes, indeed. Well, we always joked about.
- 13:51This is going to be one big party.
- 13:53Yeah, normally and projects, you know, after a successful launch
- 13:58of something, you know, as a program director or SRO one of
- 14:04your duties is them to buy the round.
- 14:06Selena celebrate. So I can tell you.
- 14:11I owe a lot to drink. I'll be bankrupt.
- 14:16I'll need a team to bailed. My financial situation out.
- 14:19I owe that many drinks to that, many people.
- 14:21So you've told us about the way you approach the projects and
- 14:24I'd like to pin you down to find out how you are able to get them
- 14:28off the ground so quickly because a month start to finish
- 14:31is pretty amazing. So with a little bit of
- 14:35hindsight, and I know you're still in there.
- 14:36Thick of things. But what would you say worked in
- 14:39your favor? What were the things that the
- 14:41success factors and helping you to get them off the ground.
- 14:45First of all, most was the senior sponsorship right up to
- 14:49our permanent? Secretary Jim Hera and the
- 14:52chancellor himself. They were crystal clear.
- 14:55This was the number one priority in no way was this competing for
- 15:00time or attention from other things?
- 15:03Secondly, somebody who's much better at maths and I am worked
- 15:08out that the cumulative hours. We all worked.
- 15:11Actually, it was an equivalent of something like a 12-week
- 15:14project because just the evenings weekends extra
- 15:19overtime, the we were running red hot every single one of us
- 15:25on that scheme. And you can't sustain that that
- 15:29is reserved for crisis only and should be reserved for crisis.
- 15:32Only. The other thing is we used
- 15:36agile. To its absolute best effect.
- 15:39And that was quite new, was it? We've used agile as an approach
- 15:43in hmrc and and indeed my other programs from previous roles
- 15:48that I've done used agile a lot. I do assert though that very
- 15:54often and I include some of my previous programs.
- 15:57We don't use our job properly, though.
- 15:59How do you mean agile when done? Well, is even more.
- 16:06UND than waterfall all too often agile is seen as enormously
- 16:12flexible and it is, but it's within controls.
- 16:15So, for example, we launched a minimum viable product.
- 16:21So on the 20th of April, when the fellow scheme went live and
- 16:26then 13th May when the self employment scheme went live.
- 16:30They were the the minimum viable products that we could put out
- 16:34to the public. Behind the scenes.
- 16:37There was still quite a lot build to do.
- 16:39For example, our internal users, to be able to take manual
- 16:43claims, or for some of the post claim compliance to be done.
- 16:49So if it wasn't essential scope for day one, it was on a
- 16:53backlog. Ready to be developed on Day, 2,
- 16:553 4, Etc. That's good agile.
- 16:59Good agile. Also, we didn't skimp on
- 17:02quality, the customer absolute came first and We even had time
- 17:07in our schedule to do highly limited private betas with
- 17:11customers so that we could always get their feedback and it
- 17:17absolutely had to control every step of the way.
- 17:20Every decision was recorded. And as I said before every
- 17:24decision came back to the project group to make so that if
- 17:29a decision was being made by the digital teams that had an impact
- 17:33on say the customer service team.
- 17:36Is that decision was well known and discussed, but the proximity
- 17:40from decision to development was minimal.
- 17:43So sometimes I'd be in a Chancellor meeting.
- 17:47I'd get a decision from the chancellor and almost assumes
- 17:51that decision had been made. I've sent the message to someone
- 17:55who's developing the code. And so our proximity was really,
- 18:00really close and that's great agile, and the new person is
- 18:04well with such seeing you. Support was decision-making,
- 18:09made easy for you was I kind of a clear line in decision-making.
- 18:14Could you make them quite fast? It was always a matter of
- 18:18judgment when to escalate a decision to the chancellor or to
- 18:23our executive committee rather than make it in program and that
- 18:28that judgment fell to me to make.
- 18:31Hopefully, I've got the balance right, what I would say though.
- 18:36It is unusual in the Civil Service, particularly for
- 18:40delivery and project people to be in the room with the
- 18:44chancellor. Normally you would have the
- 18:46policy development do that, and then the, with a degree of sort
- 18:53of viability discussion, put in the room, but it's quite late
- 18:58down the line when people like me are engaged to say, right,
- 19:03how do we deliver this? Then what we do?
- 19:06Had here was the delivery right in the room and delivery
- 19:12considerations. Therefore were an influence on
- 19:16policy design. I'm not going to say it always
- 19:20shaped it because ultimately the policy must do what the
- 19:24chancellor intended it to do. But the chancellor was able to
- 19:29hear first hand either, the risked time scale or the
- 19:34complexities. There were some things that we
- 19:37were just have to say, we can't do that.
- 19:39That's certainly shaped the Chancellor's thinking and
- 19:41decision-making. This is partly because delivery
- 19:44was the priority for that policy.
- 19:46So that the delivery are you giving money to the people who
- 19:49needed it as fast as they could. That, that was really what this
- 19:53game was all about and that you needed to be in the room.
- 19:56Absolutely. So, normally government policy
- 20:00that delivery timeline is sufficiently.
- 20:04Far ahead to allow this a bit more.
- 20:06Cascade approach of policy work and then delivery get hold of
- 20:10it. And then it's but actually that
- 20:13creates problems because inevitably by the time you go to
- 20:17deliver it, there are things that there are complexities in
- 20:21there that need navigating that creates later today.
- 20:25We couldn't afford for that to happen.
- 20:27So it made it faster and made it far more efficient.
- 20:31And I think you know, I can't speak of him, but I think the
- 20:34chancellor appreciated having that advice.
- 20:36On hand, were there, any other success factors that you want to
- 20:39mention? I know for example that the it
- 20:42systems in place already and the hmrc service for for customers
- 20:49was already working very well. And that must have been some of
- 20:52the work you're involved with previous to these projects, but
- 20:56that must have contributed to the success to have that already
- 20:58in place. We've got a really, really good
- 21:02technical team. And as I say, Mark, Denny's,
- 21:04come in, and With a few colleagues.
- 21:08Really shaken up the system for a long time.
- 21:10We've had an IT strategy to create a new platform of far
- 21:16more agile platform that we can develop microservices into and
- 21:23eventually also swap out some of our Legacy systems and head of
- 21:27Duty, we did to take the very deliberate design decision early
- 21:33to reuse existing technology not Got to go and buy and try
- 21:38untested. We also took the decision not to
- 21:42integrate more than we had to into any of our heads of Duty
- 21:46system because it's the integration that takes the time
- 21:52but also it's the calling off different Services all ads load
- 21:58to the system and and the volumes.
- 22:01We were getting at one point on self-employment.
- 22:04I think on day two. We were getting so many
- 22:08thousands and thousands of hits every minute.
- 22:12It was actually more than Google get as a platform.
- 22:16This platform needed to be an absolute Beast.
- 22:18We started calling it a Ferrari. I think we've just upgraded it
- 22:21to me a beast now, because the volumes it had to cope with, but
- 22:26our technical teams and our Architects were excellent.
- 22:29At really thinking through ways to minimize load, on the system.
- 22:34So that all the The power was pointing to coping with the
- 22:39volume. Did it fall over at all.
- 22:42Now, it had hadn't at also day two, at that really piqued mind.
- 22:48We were a little bit worried. We had a about a scary half an
- 22:52hour where steam was starting to come out of the engine, but they
- 22:59got control of it really, really quickly.
- 23:01We used front-end tools, which allow people to queue for the
- 23:06And let them in an order. So we deployed that and that
- 23:09brought it under control. But, no, we've had, we've had a
- 23:14few external issues. I think an external service went
- 23:19down which had some minor impact on us, but no, their system
- 23:23coped. Brilliantly everyone in our
- 23:26technical department is odor, huge amounts of congratulations,
- 23:31but didn't you receive some praise from Tim berners-lee?
- 23:35Yes. I think we Reduce.
- 23:36Yes, it's been incredible. Actually, although all the
- 23:40praise is slightly tinted with an element of shocked and
- 23:43surprised and there's been some brilliant comments about well, I
- 23:47never thought I'd be thanking the taxman and things like that.
- 23:50So but we love it and everybody in hmrc is immensely, proud of
- 23:56everything that has been achieved.
- 23:57Well, I mean, I sit you're right and I think it's boosted the
- 24:00reputation of hmrc massively and we want to continue that at.
- 24:04So we were Launching just before all of this happened something
- 24:10called a health of a tax system. So what does a healthy tax
- 24:15system looks like and it's one that's fair transparent and that
- 24:22the public trust and we know that the way we conduct
- 24:27ourselves with our customers is an important part of that trust
- 24:31in a tax system. So and it's really fortunate.
- 24:36That timing because now we do need to still be collecting tax.
- 24:42And there are many people out there who may default on their
- 24:46tax payments. Just because of the economic
- 24:48circumstances are in. It's really important that we
- 24:52treat our customers with compassion on things like that.
- 24:56And and I think so the great reputation we've earned with
- 25:02proud of but we know we need to work.
- 25:06To maintain it. Have you measured the success of
- 25:10the covid-19 projects you've been working on, so we've got
- 25:15lots of the metrics you'd expect so usage.
- 25:19How much money is gone out the door?
- 25:21And we'll do a lot of analysis particularly on tdrs later down
- 25:26the line when we can see, you know, how many businesses of
- 25:30sort of retained employees. And that's that's linked to the
- 25:35employment. Entre tension bonus that the
- 25:37Chancellor's announced what I would say though, my personal
- 25:40measure success has been the customer feedback.
- 25:44We've had some heartbreaking. Tales.
- 25:48There was one gentleman that called from his sick bed in
- 25:52hospital. He was suffering with covid was
- 25:56unable to work and the self-employment Grant was a real
- 26:00lifeline and one of our advisors because he can access Computer
- 26:07took his claim over the phone and just when I heard that
- 26:11story, it brought tears, to my eyes.
- 26:13It's just things like that, make it worth it.
- 26:16And that's the success for me. Well, if you don't from the
- 26:19whole experience has anything positive come from this or
- 26:23anything that surprised you lots is come from, there's lots and
- 26:27lots of and some of it's not surprising, some of it's
- 26:31actually what we've probably known for years, but need to
- 26:33just now get on with things like Like getting delivery advice
- 26:38upfront things like working more collaboratively.
- 26:42We are undertaking Lessons Learned in hmrc.
- 26:45We always do after any project but I think this will be a bit
- 26:50of a Tipping Point for us to set our projects up slightly
- 26:53differently. How do you mean?
- 26:56So a to work agile properly as I described earlier, but be it's
- 27:03the way we set up the teams. It's The the role of a project
- 27:08leader and project, managers is about the control, the pace and
- 27:12the coordination, but it's the experts should do the delivery.
- 27:17Sometimes the way we set up our programs means there's a lot of
- 27:21people standing between decision-maker and deliverer and
- 27:27it can slow the process down. So I think we need leaner more
- 27:32streamlined program structures one.
- 27:36Ones that are genuinely collaborative and ones that
- 27:39cross cut the organizational structure.
- 27:42There are some enduring lessons that will be your hope is that
- 27:47they will be subsumed within kind of normal work in practice
- 27:52in the future. Absolutely.
- 27:54And indeed our lessons. Learn our intern, feeding the
- 27:58civil service reform agenda that cabinet office and indeed the
- 28:04Prime Minister himself is leading.
- 28:06What have been the hardest things you've had to contend
- 28:08with professionally? And personally, the hardest
- 28:12thing has been keeping you resilience up, i-i'm mentioned
- 28:19to you. There's this old adjective not
- 28:22hearing the pilots cream. And and so therefore I think at
- 28:28the hardest points, it everyone else around me understandably
- 28:33was, you know, had their And of losing their nerve or getting a
- 28:39sort of the Jitters of just how enormous this was, and how risky
- 28:45it all was. And of course, as the leader of
- 28:50this, both of your teams, but you across the organization,
- 28:54you'll see, even your seniors. You're the one that has to stay
- 28:58Resolute and show complete confidence, even if inside your
- 29:03knees are shaking a little bit. And that, that was, that's been
- 29:08the biggest challenge for out that because you need to look
- 29:11after yourself in it. And that's in a way working from
- 29:15home. At the time, was I think what
- 29:18really saved my resilience because I had my family around
- 29:21me, every given moment of the day and if I just needed a
- 29:25breather a couple of minutes to catch my breath on something,
- 29:29you know, you could go and sort of give you kids a cuddle or
- 29:33find the cat. It brings you back down to the
- 29:37ground. Yes, absolutely.
- 29:40And my husband certainly needed his own fair share of resilience
- 29:44putting up with me. I'm sure what, what, what did
- 29:48you enjoy? The most from The Experience,
- 29:51Elder. People it without doubt.
- 29:55So when the service is go live, we actually for the first two,
- 30:00we put them live a couple of hours early because you start to
- 30:03just see a little bit of traffic come through even though, The
- 30:06publish time was 8 a.m. And it's and we're using chat
- 30:13bars to sort of communicate all the time.
- 30:16And so I was up at 5:30. The sun's Rising as the services
- 30:21are launching and there are just a few of us that were got
- 30:25particularly close all on chat and it was like, you know, no
- 30:30feeling quite like it their sense of togetherness, but
- 30:33excitement and fear and It was just incredible.
- 30:39I wanted to ask you more. Generally, if you think the
- 30:42experience of the past few months will give project
- 30:45managers and the project profession more of the
- 30:48recognition. It deserves within large
- 30:51organizations. I hope so.
- 30:54I really you know, and that's why I'm grateful for the
- 30:57opportunity to speak with you. I'm really, really Keen to
- 31:01promote the fact that it was project management disciplines
- 31:05that were Real part of this success and it was project
- 31:08management advice, right? At the point of conceiving the
- 31:12policies that was part of the success.
- 31:16That isn't to distract when hugely talented policy teams and
- 31:20all the people who did The graft, but project management,
- 31:24coordinates it and and is the thing up, that turns the
- 31:29ingredients of success into success, but do you think the
- 31:34Civil Service? Has a way to go to Value
- 31:39delivery more and I think that Tipping Point has now come in
- 31:43the private sector delivery is everything because until it's
- 31:47delivered. It's not making money or serving
- 31:49the customer or serving the purpose.
- 31:52We do need to have more of that in civil service and that's
- 31:55definitely something being recognized as part of the civil
- 31:58service reform. Finally.
- 32:00I'd like to ask you what you're working on right now.
- 32:04If you can tell us about the go live.
- 32:06That you're doing today and also the winding down on the furlough
- 32:11scheme, which will be in October.
- 32:13So just what do you think the next couple of months will hold
- 32:16for you? So as you say the eat out to
- 32:20help out scheme is now live. I've used it myself plenty times
- 32:25this week, but businesses will need to claim back the money and
- 32:31it's important that we give them opportunity to do that quickly
- 32:35because of cash. Constraints.
- 32:37So, the first Claims can be made tomorrow.
- 32:42So today is the final testing checking and retesting of the
- 32:47technology of the claim service. And we've got a few private beta
- 32:51customers using it as we speak, that will run to the end of
- 32:55August. But as you say, we've also got
- 32:58self-employment, second grant for that is available as of two
- 33:03weeks time, and then we've got the wind down.
- 33:06Town of both, the self employment scheme and the job
- 33:10retention scheme. That's going to keep us very
- 33:12busy until the end of this calendar year at least.
- 33:15Well, I just want to say thank you Joanna.
- 33:18It's been brilliant. Talking to you.
- 33:20Thank you. Wish you good luck and some time
- 33:23off at the end of the year. Yes.
- 33:25Thank you. Thanks again to Joanna for
- 33:29joining us and to you for listening to this final episode
- 33:32of opm's Crisis talk series. Look out for the upcoming new
- 33:36podcast, season and project innovation.
- 33:38And restarting, the economy to come in.
- 33:40The following weeks. This podcast has been brought to
- 33:43you by APM the chartered body for the project profession.
- 33:47For more information a p.m. Visit, a p.m.
- 33:50Dot org.uk.