Petition INTRODUCE FAILURE STANDARDS FOR GOVERNMENT PROJECTS

This was proposed in the series Yes Minister in the 1970s. Unfortuinately it is not permissable to give the dialogue but it was, correctly, portrayed as a very desirable innovation. Quarter of a century later Parliament should at least get the opportunity to say why not --------- every official responsible for a new project would have to list the criteria for failure before he's given the go ahead --- it's what's called the "scientific method". This means that you first establish a method of measuring the success or failure of an experiment. A proposal would have to say: "The scheme will be a failure if it takes longer than this" or "costs more than that" or "employs more staff than these" or "fails to meet those pre-set performance standards.