The calibre and number of people in leadership positions in major projects is still not strong enough. Skills and leadership remain a persistent problem in delivering major projects, particularly in getting the appropriate mix of skills across areas such as civil engineering and digital systems. While the tenure of Senior Responsible Owners (SROs) has improved slightly in recent years, SROs still typically manage four or five different projects and so do not get the time to manage them effectively. Matching up an SRO’s skills with the stage a programme is at is also important. The IPA set up the Major Projects Leadership Academy to train SROs and has begun to offer this training to Ministers with responsibility for major programmes. It is looking to build on this work with a Major Projects Academy which is intended to support training and accreditation for the wider project delivery profession across government. This Committee previously recommended that Permanent Secretaries and other civil servants attend the Major Projects Leadership Academy, but it is clear that more work remains to improve the calibre of leadership for major projects. Recommendation: All SROs and people who work in the project delivery profession should attend IPA’s major projects leadership academy. Cabinet Office and HM Treasury should make sure all departments comply, including ensuring that all SROs have sufficient skills and time to be able to undertake their responsibilities. They should write to us to explain how they have assured themselves that this is happening. The IPA should update us in six months about how many people and in which positions, have been accredited and across which departments. It should also explain how it plans to roll out its training to the government project delivery profession as a whole, and whether the government now has, in its opinion, enough SROs to manage the number and scale of projects promised.