From promise to proof: Improving government delivery amidst rising public expectations 

Across the globe, citizens are losing confidence in the ability of the state to deliver on the priorities that matter most to them.  

Delivery of major programmes has failed to keep pace with rising citizen expectations, creating a credibility gap that erodes trust, engagement and political legitimacy. 

In this piece we set out five techniques that can help to get programmes back on track.  

The picture for UK government major programmes is a tale of extremes. On the one hand, green-rated projects on the Government Major Projects Portfolio (GMPP) are up from 11 per cent in 2022 to 15 per cent in 2025. At the same time, however, the number of red-rated projects has grown from 10 per cent in 2023 to 15 per cent in 2025. The decreasing performance is driven largely by infrastructure and defence, with the number of struggling MoD programmes doubling from 2024-25.  

This is not unique to the UK. Nous Group work with governments across Australasia and North America. These governments face similar challenges. The average Australian defence project is delayed by more than two years. Similarly in Canada, major programmes are facing well-publicised issues. 

Delivering major programmes to time and budget has rarely been so critical.  

Programme delivery is tough and there are no silver bullets. Success relies on a combination of strategic leadership and a lot of small things done well.  

Here we outline five techniques and tools to use to get your programme to green.  

It is all too easy to see major programme delivery as the execution of just a few, big decisions: Stop/Go. Option A or Option B.  

But those big decisions are the consequence of a continuous stream of smaller – but no less important – decisions. These are captured across governance documentation including risk logs, minutes, and agendas.  

The importance of these governance assets is regularly overlooked. But without them, the whole thing can fall over.   

Senior bandwidth is highly limited. You need it focussed on the issues that matter most. It is disarmingly obvious, but clear papers, discussed in well-chaired meetings, with focussed agendas can unlock real momentum and alignment.  

Insight: This is not about creating reams of programme materials and training everyone in programme methodologies. In fact, sometimes the real value comes in just focusing on the two or three governance assets that unlock most value and accepting that other materials are simply “good enough”.  

In major programmes it is relatively easy to think both very short term and very long term.  

For short term, there’s never not a crisis. The SRO must rightly focus on resolving these at pace. 

For long term, there’s often a decent future vision, because the business case process demands it.  

But the critical element that’s often missing – and not understood or communicated – is the medium-term horizon. What are the interim states between the ‘as is’ and the ‘to be’? What are the next three milestones that are key to progress, such as assurance reviews or key consultation moments?  

Insight: Crises will absorb bandwidth and long-term vision is relatively easy to capture. The hardest part is defining and updating the intermediate steps, and doing this mid-flight, continually. Objective programme challenge can be valuable here: lifting gaze from urgent up to the important.  

Programmes live and die by senior alignment. And in Government and defence, the distributed nature of decision-making makes this complex. You have countless actors to involve. Divergent interests can be left unstated for many months or even years, at which point it’s too late.  

Relationships are critical to making things ‘stick’. That involves empowering your teams, aligning with colleagues, and having robust and open dialogue with stakeholders.   

Insight: Programmes are rational and emotional. Sometimes our desire for things to change for our users can drive counterproductive behaviours towards our colleagues. Driving rational alignment through discussion and debate only solves half the issue. Leaders must drive emotional alignment – we are all products of our professional and personal motivations.  

Programmes are exposed and often lonely spots for leaders. It can sometimes feel like nothing is going right. And you’re reminded of all the ‘sunk cost’ of resources on a particular path that you fear is becoming the wrong one. In this context, it can be hard to face the prospect of failure.  

However, research consistently shows that imagining failure can help to pre-empt and prevent it. Done effectively, it doesn’t unravel into a self-fulfilling prophecy, but becomes invaluable to keeping progress on track.  

Insight: Traditional risk regimes only go so far. They can bake in existing organisational biases, and without the permission to anticipate failure in a judgement-free environment, often result in over-optimistic assessments that miss critical vulnerabilities. Structured exercises such as Red Teaming and Pre Mortems can help provide neutrality and permission to truly anticipate risks and get ahead of them.  

In ten years or less, programmes will be run by human-AI hybrid PMOs, surfacing risks and issues for humans to deal with where human judgement, accountability and relationships are key.  

But even today the opportunities to exploit the benefits of AI remain untapped in lots of programme delivery.  

Insight:  Don’t wait for “the future” to exploit these. Use the capabilities you already have. Copilot facilitator for simplifying meeting actions. PMOs using LLMs to summarise papers to crystalise the decisions needed, where they have been left unclear or unstated. 

Governments will not rebuild public confidence through ambition alone. They will do it by delivering consistently: getting the basics right, keeping sight of the medium term, building alignment, confronting risks early, and using technology with purpose. In an era of rising expectations, programme leaders who can turn promise into proof have the potential to do that most difficult and necessary of things: strengthen trust in government itself. 

Get in touch to discuss how to improve delivery in complex government programmes.

Connect with Laurie Martin and Mark Baines on LinkedIn.