Permit Portal: the benefit that stopped being credible
Northbridge Council approved the Permit Portal 14 months ago: a £3.1m budget, 4,200 traders moved off paper permits, and £1.9m of projected efficiency savings. At month 14, £2.35m is spent, three of five products are delivered, and payments-module testing is 11 weeks late after two failed cycles. Last week the national government launched a free permitting service covering roughly 70% of the council's permit types. The executive, who chairs the project board, told the project manager: "We've come too far to stop - the money is already spent." The end-stage report forecasts a £240k overspend against stage tolerance of ±£80k, and the senior user has stopped attending board meetings.
1. Which PRINCE2 principle is under threat here, and what does the executive's statement reveal about the project's justification? What is the project manager's obligation?
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The principle at risk is continued business justification. The executive's "we've come too far" argument is a sunk-cost argument: money already spent is irrelevant to whether the remaining spend is worth it. The test is whether the remaining investment still delivers a worthwhile return, and the free national service has removed about 70% of the projected benefit while costs are rising.
Points the project manager should make:
- The business case has not been reviewed since the national service was announced - justification is therefore unevidenced, not merely doubtful.
- Justification must be reviewed and re-confirmed at every stage boundary, and the end-stage report is exactly that point.
- Deciding to continue, change or stop is a project board decision, not the project manager's. Calling it "a sunk cost" does not remove the board's accountability for the investment.
- The project manager's obligation is to present the evidence honestly and to escalate, not to keep delivering in the hope the position improves.
A useful reframe for the board: "If we were approving this project today, knowing what we know, would we?" If the answer is no, the same answer applies now.
2. The board asks the project manager to "make the case for finishing". What must the project manager actually produce, and what realistic options should the board be asked to choose between?
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The project manager should not produce advocacy material; they should produce a decision-quality exception report containing an updated business case and a comparison of options.
What must be produced:
- Updated business case: revised benefits (recognising the 70% overlap with the free service), dis-benefits, remaining costs, timescales and the risk position.
- Impact analysis: forecast outturn against project and stage tolerances; the effect of stopping now, including partial product value and exit costs.
- Options with an appraisal of each, not a single recommendation dressed as a fact.
Realistic options the board can choose between:
- Stop the project - transition to the national service for the majority of permit types, accept the loss, close via the directing-a-project closure decision.
- Narrow the scope - deliver only the ~30% of permit types the national service does not cover, if the benefit case for that subset holds.
- Continue as planned - only defensible with new evidence that benefits have been underestimated.
The board then authorises an exception plan (or directs closure). Recording the rationale and lessons is part of the decision, not an afterthought.
3. The board chooses the narrowed scope covering only the permit types the national service does not support. What must the project manager change in the project's documentation and controls, and which principles are being exercised?
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A scope change of this size is not an administrative edit - it invalidates several baselines.
Must be updated:
- Project product description, product breakdown structure and relevant product descriptions - handover, training and acceptance criteria for 4,200 traders are materially different.
- Business case and benefits management approach: new benefit figures, revised benefit owners and measurement, plus a replacement benefits realisation plan for the withdrawn scope.
- Project plan and a new or revised stage plan / exception plan for the remaining work.
- PID (scope, tolerances, tailoring notes), risk register (integration with the national service is now a significant dependency risk) and the communications management approach, since traders were told a different story.
- Issue register and lessons log - the decision, its basis and the timing of the national service announcement should be captured for future work.
Principles exercised: continued business justification (justification rebuilt from evidence), manage by exception (the overspend was escalated through the exception report rather than absorbed), learn from experience (why was the external dependency not monitored?), and tailor to suit - the reduced scope justifies a lighter, shorter stage structure.