Government delivery leaders are facing a concentrated period of change.
The Programme and Project Data Standard is moving departments towards a common approach to delivery data. Microsoft Project Online will retire on 30 September 2026. Government is pursuing an AI-first approach to public services. Spending Review settlements are intensifying the focus on accountability, outcomes and value. At the same time, reforms to the Government Major Projects Portfolio are placing greater responsibility for major programme governance within departments.
Viewed separately, these can appear to be a series of distinct challenges, each requiring its own workstream, technology decision and change programme.
But thinking of them as separate challenges is, in my opinion, a mistake.
These pressures are closely connected. At their heart, they represent one strategic challenge: the need for government to create, manage and govern high-quality delivery data, consistently.
The Centre of Gravity Is Shifting
Changes to the Government Major Projects Portfolio have reduced the number of programmes receiving the highest level of central oversight, from more than 200 to around 80 to 100. The intention is to focus central support on the most nationally significant and highest-risk initiatives, while delegating greater responsibility to departments.
This does not make the programmes outside the refocused portfolio less important or less complex, however. It means departmental leaders will increasingly need to ensure that the right governance, assurance and delivery disciplines exist within their own organisations. They will require reliable oversight of programmes that may previously have benefited from more direct central support.
Departments are required to regularly share progress data for qualifying projects and programmes through the Government Reporting Integration Platform (GRIP), with GMPP projects and programmes reporting through the GMPP template. This creates a more consistent, centralised view of delivery information across government.
This places data quality, ownership and consistency at the centre of departmental accountability.
If leaders cannot trust the information moving through their governance structures, they cannot confidently identify risk, challenge performance, allocate resources or demonstrate that public investment is producing the intended outcomes.
The Data Standard Is More Than a Compliance Requirement
The Programme and Project Data Standard gives government a common framework for defining, formatting and updating core delivery information, including milestones, costs, risks, benefits and people data.
Its purpose is not simply to make reporting more uniform. It is intended to improve data quality and interoperability, support better decision-making and strengthen assurance, risk management and continuous improvement across government.
The standard is currently in a 12-month trial period running until 31 December 2026. During 2026, departments and arm’s-length bodies are expected to develop plans for adopting it. Version 2 is due in early 2027, after which it will become mandatory, with in-scope organisations expected to meet the standard by 2030.
Departments do not need to have completed full compliance by December 2026, but they do need to understand their current position, identify the gaps and establish a credible route towards adoption.
That requires more than mapping a few existing fields against a new template. It means examining the systems, definitions, governance arrangements and behaviours through which programme and project data is created and maintained.
Technology Decisions Cannot Be Made in Isolation
For departments using Microsoft Project Online, another deadline is approaching even faster.
The service will retire on 30 September 2026 – mere weeks away from this point of writing. This applies specifically to Project Online and does not mean the end of Microsoft Project desktop, Planner or Project Server Subscription Edition. However, departments using Project Online as part of their portfolio reporting and governance environment need to preserve their data, understand their dependencies and transition to an appropriate alternative before access ends.
It would be easy to treat this as a system migration project. But moving information from one platform to another without addressing its quality, structure and governance simply relocates the problem.
The more strategic question is not:
“What should replace our current platform?”
It is:
“What delivery information will government need over the next decade, and how should our operating model and technology support it?”
Departments facing the retirement of Project Online and the introduction of the Data Standard have an opportunity to address both through one coherent transformation.
Rather than recreating legacy structures in a new system, they can establish a portfolio environment built around common definitions, governed data and consistent decision-making.
AI Depends on the Foundations Beneath It
The same principle applies to government’s AI ambitions.
AI can help leaders surface risks, recognise patterns, reduce reporting effort and extract insights across large, complex portfolios. But no AI capability can compensate for fragmented, duplicated, incomplete or inconsistently defined data.
The Programme and Project Data Standard explicitly creates foundations for digital and AI tools by improving the consistency and quality of delivery information across government, and this is why I do not see data compliance and AI adoption as separate agendas.
Structured and well-governed data is what makes AI useful, explainable and trustworthy. Without that foundation, AI risks producing faster answers to the wrong questions. With it, AI can become a practical part of portfolio oversight and management.
At Verto, we introduced AI at the portfolio level because it could serve a clear operational purpose. It was not added as a campaign hook or a novelty. It was designed to help teams understand their portfolios, access information more easily and make better use of the delivery data they already hold.
AI should not sit alongside the operating model as a separate experiment. It should work within a governed delivery environment.
One Strategic Response
In my paper, Beyond Project Portfolio Management, I explore the need to move beyond traditional PPM thinking and consider the wider system through which strategy, investment, governance, delivery and outcomes are connected.
The Data Standard, the retirement of Project Online, AI-first government, Spending Review accountability and the refocusing of central assurance should not generate five disconnected responses.
Government leaders need one strategic response built around:
- A common portfolio data model;
- Consistent definitions and reporting disciplines;
- Clear ownership and accountability;
- Technology that supports the government standard by design;
- Governance proportionate to the scale and risk of delivery;
- High-quality data that can support assurance, interoperability and AI.
Get that foundation right and many of the apparent problems become easier to manage.
Built for the Realities of Government
Verto has worked with central and local government organisations since 2008, supporting complex programmes, portfolios and large-scale change.
The platform was built specifically for the public sector, with all Verto data hosted in the UK. We understand that government portfolio management is not simply about tracking plans and tasks. It is about creating the visibility, control and confidence that leaders need to deliver through complexity.
We have also developed a Verto configuration aligned with the Programme and Project Data Standard, giving departments a more direct and frictionless route towards adoption.
For organisations reconsidering their technology, strengthening departmental governance or preparing their December 2026 adoption plan, this is an opportunity to do more than meet the next deadline - It is an opportunity to establish a stronger delivery data foundation for the decade ahead.
A Conversation for Government Leaders
Over the coming months, I will be speaking with leaders across central government about how they are responding to this convergence of change.
If you are attending DigiGov, I would welcome a conversation about your department’s position, whether you are assessing the Data Standard, reviewing your portfolio technology, strengthening internal assurance or considering how AI can support better delivery.
The deadlines are real, but responding to them separately will create unnecessary cost, duplication and complexity.
Treat them as one strategic data challenge, and government has an opportunity to create something far more valuable: a consistent, trusted and intelligent environment for delivering public outcomes.
Pete Cox
Central Government Director, Verto
Author of Beyond Project Portfolio Management
