Application for Head of Delivery UKHSA – Alison Saunders Personal

Statement:
As Senior Project Delivery Manager at the Food Standards Agency (FSA), I co-
ordinate and deliver numerous workstreams within FSA’s Zero Trust Programme to
ensure that appropriate governance and deliverables are in place to increase the
FSA’s resilience against cyber security breaches and malicious attack. Bringing a
fresh pair of non-technical eyes to this project, I have identified gaps and
interdependencies, bringing stakeholders together to remove silos and improve
collaboration and shared benefits. I have introduced management reporting to this
project, capturing lessons learned and future priorities. My engagement with senior
stakeholders, both internally and externally, supports the identification and
management of key risks and promotes effective governance, control and
assurance. 
With my background in user insight, I define the user journey and implement
standards and processes for delivery. This has brought structure and pace to this
project, ensuring effective implementation.
I negotiate and influence funding, managing user requirements to drive user and
supplier value. Accountable for the business case, and performance of delivery leads
and suppliers across this project, I plan, track and assure the work-streams,
providing direction and facilitating the virtual team whilst removing blockers that
might de-rail the project.
I also matrix-manage and mentor a multi-disciplinary team, delivering process
improvements and a cohesive team culture whilst cross-skilling the team to increase
its resilience and capacity as well as ensure effective succession-planning.

Working with the Central Digital and Data Office I am a cross-government service
assessor for complex strategic digital projects and programmes. As assessment
panel Chair, I provide service development feedback and recommendations to
Senior Responsible Owners based on the government service standard. This is
often in a challenging environment where Senior Responsible Owners have already
invested heavily by the assessment stage, so my credibility and diplomacy are vital
to building trust and effective outcomes. 
Drawing on this experience, I implemented service assessments across the
FSA’s Digital Data and Technology portfolio. I ensured that these assessments
are structured, well-planned and prioritised, offering coaching and support to
project teams when needed. These now form part of our digital project
governance and culture, safeguarding service standards. Working with senior
leaders and engaging a range of volunteers to build their competence in
project assessment, I have ensured that these service assessments are
constructive and transparent. They have increased successful project delivery
and implementation through the application of service standards, enhanced
spend controls throughout the project lifecycle and improved FSA/supplier
relationships.

Seeking to broaden my appreciation of the FSA’s complex service delivery and

regulatory challenges, I volunteered as Briefing Cell Manager supporting the
FSA’s major incident responses to Covid, EU transition, winter planning and
the Ukraine war. Collaborating across FSA and wider government in all four
countries, I co-ordinated regular submissions, briefings and situation reports
for the FSA Chief Executive and Board, working at pace to meet tight
deadlines. I gave clear, focused direction to my virtual Briefing Cell team of
about 30 staff, judging when to call on specialist subject matter experts.
I led the Briefing Cell in response to the urgent issue of imports of certain food
and feed products travelling through the EU to the UK from non-EU countries
via Dover without the required Sanitary and Phytosanitary checks. Analysing
complex and sometimes incomplete information, I outlined the resource costs
of mitigating the incident and produced a strategic risk assessment, outlining
what was needed to contain the situation, maintaining effective governance
whilst reducing risk to a more tolerable level to enable de-escalation of the
incident.
I created clear, compelling proposals informing Board-level discussion and the
strategic direction of FSA’s incident response. I provided strong, calm, visible
leadership and motivation, clarifying and addressing priorities whilst managing
resources flexibly to meet developing business needs. Working closely with
Operations colleagues to understand their priorities, I identified opportunities to
streamline and standardise existing business processes. I ensured that we
had strong structures and disciplines in place to keep the CEO and Board
informed in a timely way, so that our connections into Whitehall were well-
served and decisions could be made effectively. The Board and senior
leadership colleagues noted my commitment and professionalism to deliver against
difficult challenges and uncertainty in leading the Briefing Cell team. They
commended me for my clarity and co-ordination in support of FSA senior leaders
and a wide range of stakeholders. I was highly visible and even when facing tight
deadlines, I delivered with real effect to help make FSA’s emergency response work
effectively.

As Business Change Project Manager at the Office for National Statistics, I led the
roll-out and readiness planning of the Electronic Data Collection Programme, a high-
profile transformation of business surveys from paper onto a new digital platform
delivering annual cost savings in excess of £2 million. To accommodate a complex
timetable of multiple non-negotiable business priorities, I convened a series of
internal stakeholder workshops where I assessed critical resource pressures,
ensuring that everyone could articulate their priorities. I set up and chaired a monthly
roll-out delivery group formed of key internal stakeholders to define business
readiness for project roll-out and provide accountability to the Programme Board.
Addressing concern from senior statisticians that this transformation programme
might undermine ONS data credibility, I delivered a year-long pilot survey, regularly
consulting with stakeholders to secure their confidence, whilst investigating the
potential impact of digitalisation on seasonality, user behaviour and data capture.
This pilot identified that businesses returned faster, more complete survey responses
which reduced ONS operational overheads by approximately 30% over 12 months.
I also developed a performance measurement framework, addressing business
pressures on the horizon to ensure that these did not de-rail the roll-out plan. I
created a set of KPIs to track and analyse cost per transaction, digital take-up,
completion rate and user satisfaction. I incorporated these into a continuous
improvement plan to enable the project to accommodate changes in business,
commercial or user demand. The Programme Board praised me for delivering roll-
out plan ahead of schedule despite internal and external risk-aversion.