The benefits that moved: a local authority waste-collection transformation
The Northshire Council approved a £4.2m, 14-month programme to transform waste collection, with a business case promising £1.1m annual savings from route optimisation and reduced overtime. At the end of stage 2, month 6, the integration supplier reports that the fleet telematics interface will cost £600k more and take ten weeks longer. The finance director's revised model shows annual savings of £450k. The senior user reports that crews are resisting the new routes, and the HR business partner confirms a dis-benefit: 30 temporary collection roles will end. The project board meets in five days. The executive has asked the project manager to 'bring the business case up to date and tell us whether we should carry on.' The programme is publicly committed to a launch before the winter timetable, and the council's constitution requires any project with a negative net present value to be referred to cabinet.
1. What should the project manager do to the business case before the board, and what recommendation should they make?
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The business case is not a one-off approval document. The continued business justification principle requires it to be updated at each stage boundary and whenever material change occurs, so the project manager must not present the original case as if nothing has changed.
Before the meeting the project manager should:
- Recalculate costs, benefits, timescale and dis-benefits using the supplier's £600k increase, the ten-week delay, the revised £450k annual saving and the 30 role losses.
- Test the revised case against the benefits tolerance and the council's negative-NPV rule.
- Re-examine options: stop, de-scope telematics, phase the rollout, or continue. For each option, show incremental cost, benefit, risk and timescale.
- Confirm that the senior user still owns and can measure each benefit, especially the overtime reduction, and state how the dis-benefit will be managed.
The recommendation should follow the numbers, not the public launch commitment. If the revised NPV is still positive and within tolerance, recommend continuing with a re-scoped option and a formal benefits review at the next boundary. If it is not, recommend referral to cabinet and a stop or reset. The project manager should also check whether the extra £600k and ten weeks exceed delegated tolerances; if they do, an exception report is required. The board needs a justified option, not an assurance that the team will try harder.
2. The senior user proposes deleting the overtime-reduction benefit and relying only on route optimisation. Evaluate this proposal.
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Deleting a benefit is a change to the business case, not an administrative tidy-up. The proposal must be tested before the board accepts it.
First, is the overtime benefit genuinely unachievable? Crew resistance may be a delivery risk or an issue to manage, not proof that the benefit cannot be realised. The project manager should obtain evidence from operations and HR, including whether overtime is contractual, whether new routes reduce the need for it, and what consultation is planned. If the benefit can still be achieved with different transition arrangements, removing it would understate the case.
Second, if the benefit really cannot be achieved, the revised case must show whether the remaining £450k annual saving justifies the increased cost and the dis-benefit of 30 role losses. Removing an inconvenient benefit to make the project look viable is not continued business justification. The benefits management approach should be updated to show the revised benefit profile, owners, measures and review points, and the board should decide whether the project remains worthwhile. If the board accepts the deletion, the business case and PID must be re-baselined and the decision recorded in the issue register.