A review into Wellington’s $6.4b Lets Get Wellington Moving transport project says "LGWM in its current state is at risk of failing to deliver an integrated, cohesive, prioritised and outcomes-driven package of investments".

The results of the internal review by LGWM has been recently released as a report titled 'LGWM Health Check'. The report has been prepared in December 2020 but only recently made public.

LGWM says, for the failure risk, "The primary causes being a process-driven rather than outcomes-driven focus; a project-led (i.e. bottom up) approach; and a lack of programme identity that places ‘what’s best for programme’ thinking at its core.  Capability gaps and under-resourcing have exacerbated the problem.  There is no single point of failure, but critical improvements must be made across several areas".

To solve these problems, report write LGWM  'requires a pause to enable proper programme discipline to be implemented, and to resource up appropriately". and outlines the actions to be taken during the pause period as:

During the pause, LGWM should be reset, with the following undertaken:

- Reassessment and confirmation of the objectives and outcomes by the partner organisations collectively, specifically in the context of the indicative package of investments.

- Clarification of the role of urban development vis-à-vis transport infrastructure optimisation in driving the outcomes (i.e. are they equally important drivers?).

- Development of a multi criteria appraisal model to prioritise the individual projects against the agreed objectives.  This must address competing objectives, cross-project interdependencies, conflicts and trade-offs, and allow them to be resolved and managed openly and transparently.  The model should be able to adapt to changes in policy; addition of projects over time; changes to projects, timing and funding; and be able to remodel as and when needed.

- Development of an integrated programme baseline that also addresses affordability (cost and funding) and deliverability (sequencing and delivery) constraints.

It further says, as it is now, "there is little evidence of detailed design, operationalisation or implementation" in the existing plans. It also recommends "programme governance structure be flattened, sharpened and empowered", adding that "Within the LGWM team there is a lack of proven experience and expertise in delivering within a complex and large scale integrated programme environment.  Strategic leadership is also lacking, with an absence of ‘champions’ who build the brand, head off challenges and foster collaboration and unification".

A very candidly worded report, it says that "The current culture is detrimental to a collaborative and productive working environment within the programme, the relationship between the programme and the partner organisations, and between the partner organisations themselves".

It concludes saying that recommendations will lead to an adjusted LGWM programme in terms of timeframes, scope and cost though it is better than risking the failure with the current approach.

Executive summary of the 'LGWM Health Check' report:

https://lgwm-prod-public.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/public/Documents/Executive-Summary-LGWM-Health-Check-December-2020.pdf

and the final report:

https://lgwm-prod-public.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/public/Documents/LGWM-final-report-December-2020.pdf

If you would like to access the reports from LGWM site, rather than those dodgy looking URLs:

https://lgwm.nz/resources/documents/2021/