04 Strategic Intervention / Model

When a project is in trouble

A capital project in construction and a long-term contract in its operating years fail in different ways, but the decision facing the client is the same: how hard to intervene. Too little and the cause stays in place. Too much and the intervention becomes the next problem.

This model starts from what you can see, traces it to likely root causes, and points to the lightest intervention that reaches them, on a ladder from independent assurance to termination.

A decision aid, not a diagnosis. The links between symptoms, causes and interventions are our synthesis, drawn from National Audit Office findings and government guidance. Every real case needs its own evidence.
1 / Diagnose
2 / The intervention ladder

From lightest to heaviest. Select a rung for when to use it, what must be true first, the levers, the cost and risk, and what goes wrong.

Principles

Five rules for intervening

  1. Treat the cause, not the symptom. A rising forecast is a symptom. Re-baselining it without finding out why only moves the problem.
  2. Use the lightest rung that reaches the cause. Each step up the ladder costs more, takes longer and disrupts more. Going too low leaves the cause in place; going too high creates new problems.
  3. Know the numbers before you negotiate. Restructuring a deal without a stable plan and knowledge of the supplier's actual costs negotiates from weakness.
  4. Compare resetting with stopping. Set sunk cost aside and ask whether the remaining spend still buys the outcome.
  5. Plan the exit before you need it. Contingency plans, resolution information and secured warranties are cheap before distress and expensive after it.
Sources
  1. National Audit Office, Lessons learned from Major Programmes, HC 960, November 2020 (paras 18, 22, 30-33, 47-48).
  2. National Audit Office, Lessons learned: Resetting major programmes, HC 1198, March 2023 (paras 2, 11, 22; p.12).
  3. National Audit Office, Lessons learned: Governance and decision-making on mega-projects, HC 545, March 2025 (paras 3.8, 4.3, 4.11-4.12).
  4. National Audit Office, Investigation into the government's handling of the collapse of Carillion, HC 1002, June 2018 (para 6).
  5. National Audit Office, Completing Crossrail, HC 2106, May 2019 (paras 2.11-2.14).
  6. National Audit Office, Crossrail - a progress update, HC 299, July 2021 (paras 11, 14).
  7. National Audit Office, Electronic monitoring: a progress update, HC 62, June 2022.
  8. Cabinet Office, Corporate Financial Distress guidance, 2025 update: indicators of distress and supportive actions.
  9. Cabinet Office, The Construction Playbook, v1.1, September 2022: ch.8 (due diligence during selection) and ch.10 (resolution planning and financial monitoring).
  10. Procurement Act 2023: s.74 and Schedule 8 (modifying contracts), ss.78 and 80 (termination).
  11. National Audit Office, High Speed Two reset, HC 52, June 2026 (paras 3, 12). The reset is ongoing; figures are as reported at that date.
  12. Cabinet Office, Government Functional Standard GovS 008: Commercial, v2.2, April 2026 (5.4.7).
  13. Infrastructure and Projects Authority, Resetting Major Programmes, December 2024.
  14. National Audit Office, Progress report: Terminating the Magnox contract, HC 727, September 2020; and The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority's Magnox contract, HC 406, October 2017.
Next step

We diagnose troubled projects and contracts, advise on the intervention, and lead it where needed, from an independent review to a full commercial reset. Discuss a project in difficulty →