Transparency data

A66 Northern Trans-Pennine project SRO appointment letter

Updated 31 July 2026

Sender

Jo Shanmugalingam, Permanent Secretary of the Department for Transport (DfT)

Karina Singh, Government Head of Profession for Project Delivery and the Deputy Government Head of Function for Project Delivery

Recipient

Tim Gamon, Senior Responsible Owner for the A66 Northern Trans-Pennine project

Letter

31 July 2026

Subject: Appointment as senior responsible owner (SRO) for the A66 Northern Trans-Pennine project

We are writing to confirm your appointment as senior responsible owner (SRO) of the A66 Northern Trans-Pennine project with effect from 1 April 2026. This letter sets out your responsibilities and the support you can expect from your department, government project delivery and the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority.

As SRO, you are directly accountable to the director general for the Road Transport Group and the chief executive of National Highways, under the oversight of Jo Shanmugalingam as the Accounting Officer for DfT and the Secretary of State for Transport.

Your A66 Northern Trans-Pennine project will follow DfT’s investment approvals governance process, under the oversight of the investment committee and is included in the government major projects portfolio (GMPP).

You have personal responsibility for the delivery of the project and will be held accountable for the delivery of its objectives, policy intent and outcomes. This encompasses securing and protecting its vision, ensuring that it is governed responsibly, reported on honesty, escalated appropriately and influencing the context, culture and operating environment of the project.

You are also responsible for ensuring the ongoing viability of the project and recommending its pause or termination if appropriate. Where issues arise which you are unable to resolve, you are responsible for escalating these to the National Highways investment committee and the relevant executive committee (ExCo) sub-committees.

You remain accountable to ministers, as set out in the Civil Service Code and should deliver the project in accordance with the objectives and policy intent as set by ministers.

In addition to your internal accountabilities, SROs for GMPP projects and programmes are personally accountable to Parliamentary select committees. This means that, from the date of this letter, you will be held personally accountable to and could be called by select committees to account for and explain the decisions and actions you have taken to deliver the project.

It is important to be clear that your accountability relates only to implementation, within the agreed terms in this letter, it will remain for the minister to account for the relevant policy decisions and development.

More information on this is set out in giving evidence to select committees guidance for Civil Servants, sometimes known as the osmotherly rules. Information on the roles and responsibilities of the SRO is detailed in government project delivery’s guidance on the role of the senior responsible owner.

You are expected to run your project in accordance with the government functional standard for project delivery and the requirements of other functional standards as required, which is mandated for government departments and arm’s length bodies to follow. You should also make yourself familiar with the project delivery portal, the teal book, government project delivery’s code of practice for project delivery, and any further guidance and requirements set by the project delivery and performance directorate.

Tenure of position

This role will require at least 50% of your time to enable effective delivery of the role and execute your responsibilities in full.

You are required to undertake this role until achievement of construction completion, planned for Road Investment Strategy 4. Progress towards this will be reflected in your personal objectives. Any changes to the agreed time commitment or tenure of the role, as set out above, will require both departmental and National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority consent.

Objectives and performance criteria of the A66 Northern Trans-Pennine project

The policy intent supported by this project is to kickstart economic growth and break down barriers to opportunity through improving journeys and connectivity across the north of England and nationwide.

Any proposed changes to scope that impact on this intent or the realisation of benefits must be authorised by the relevant ExCo sub-committee and may be subject to further levels of approval.

The vision of the A66 Northern Trans-Pennine project is to:

• deliver a safe, free-flowing and reliable upgraded road across the north of England
• improve national, regional and local journeys by upgrading the remaining 6 single carriageway sections of the A66 between the A1(M) at Scotch Corner in North Yorkshire and the M6 at Penrith in Cumbria
• create a continuous dual carriageway across the Pennines, including key junction upgrades

The project’s objectives are to:

• Support the economic growth objectives of the government’s mission to kick-start economic growth and its Northern growth strategy.
• Improve and promote the route as a strategic national connection – the A66 plays an essential role for east-west journeys across the north of England and provides the most direct route between the central belt of Scotland and the eastern side of England. The route connects cities like Glasgow and Edinburgh with Leeds, Sheffield and Norwich.
• Improve road safety.
• Improve access for regional and local services and jobs.
• Improve access for tourism, such as to the Yorkshire Dales and Lake District.
• Improve journey time reliability for road users.
• Improve route resilience.
• Improve pedestrian, cyclist, and equestrian provision.
• Minimise the impact of the route on severance for local communities.
• Minimise adverse impacts on the environment and where possible optimise environmental improvement opportunities.

Your personal objectives and performance criteria which relate to the A66 Northern Trans-Pennine project are:

• seek value for money and efficient delivery to forecasted timescales
• achieve the overarching performance, economic, societal and environmental benefits of the project to deliver for the people and communities in the surrounding area, wider north region and nationally
• ensure a plan is in place for the closure of the project at the appropriate time – this should include transfer of business-as-usual activities and capture and dissemination of appropriate lessons

Extent and limit of accountability

Finance and Controls

HM Treasury spending controls will apply on the basis set out within the department’s delegated authority letter. Where the project exceeds the delegated authority set by HM Treasury, the Treasury approval point process will apply, and the details of each approval process must be agreed with your HM Treasury spending team. You should consult departmental finance colleagues on how to go about this.

You should note that where expenditure is considered novel, contentious, repercussive or likely to result in costs to other parts of the public sector, HM Treasury approval will be required, regardless of whether the programme expenditure exceeds the delegated authority set by HM Treasury. If in doubt about whether approval is required, you should, in the first instance, consult departmental finance colleagues before raising it with the relevant HM Treasury spending team.

The overall estimated budget, resourcing requirements and tolerances for your project will be agreed as part of the approval process. You will be expected to deliver within these tolerances and report quarterly on these as part of GMPP reporting.

You should operate at all times within the rules set out in managing public money. In addition, you must be mindful of, and act in accordance with, the specific HM Treasury delegated limits and Cabinet Office controls relevant to the project.

Delegated authority

You are authorised to:

• approve expenditure within the budget and funding approved by the National Highways Investment Decision Committee (NHIDC), National Highways Investment Committee (NHIC), appropriate department ExCo sub-committee and ministers
• agree project  rescheduling within the tolerance levels agreed within the National Highways Delivery Plan, but rescheduling beyond that must be agreed with the National Highways investment committee and ExCo’s sub-committees
• recommend to the accounting officer and the relevant ExCo sub-committee the need to either pause or terminate the programme where necessary and in a timely manner

These authority limits are subject to change and other conditions or tolerances may be set as part of the business case approval and ongoing monitoring processes which you should then operate within.

Where issues arise that take you outside of these authority limits which you are unable to resolve, you are responsible for escalating these issues to the accounting officer and the relevant ExCo sub-committee.

Appointments

You should appoint a full-time project director to support you in the management of this project and make other appointments as required for the control and delivery of your programme within your delegated authority.

Governance and assurance

You should pay attention to ensuring effective governance for your project, including the establishment of a project committee with appropriate membership and clear terms of reference.

As primary owner, you must ensure that the project secures business case approval from the investment committee as well as the Cabinet Office and HM Treasury. You should also ensure that the project remains aligned to the strategic outcomes, costs, timescales and benefits in line with the approved business case, as well as monitoring the context within which the project is being delivered to ensure it remains valid.

Where a change impacts the scope, costs, benefits or planned delivery milestones agreed as part of an agreed business case, you are responsible for following the agreed change request approval process and setting a new, approved, business case baseline.

You should ensure that an accounting officer assessment is completed alongside the approval of the outline business case, that it is updated throughout the project lifecycle and that this is published on GOV.UK as part of the government’s transparency requirements on major projects. You are responsible for bringing to the attention of the accounting officer any material changes in the project that could require a new accounting officer assessment to be completed and published. Guidance on completing accounting officer assessments for major projects is available from HM Treasury.

You are responsible for assuring the accounting officer and relevant oversight bodies that the environmental principles policy statement legal duty has been considered by ministers in policy decisions underpinning the project.

Although you are directly accountable for this A66 Northern Trans-Pennine project, you are also expected to support delivery of the department’s overall strategic objectives. This means that you are expected to work collaboratively with other SROs and project directors in adjacent projects and programmes and with the DfT’s project delivery and performance directorate and chief project delivery officer and National Highways’ portfolio management office to manage dependencies, resources, schedules and funding to support delivery of the overall change the department needs to achieve its strategic objectives.

You should ensure that appropriate and proportionate assurance is in place and agree on the level and frequency of assurance reviews through the maintenance of an integrated assurance and approvals plan. You should develop this plan and its maintenance in collaboration with the departmental assurance coordinator and the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority.

A66 Northern Trans-Pennine project status, reporting and transparency requirements

The A66 Northern Trans-Pennine project status at the date of your appointment is reflected in the most recent quarterly return on the project to the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority and is the agreed position as you assume formal ownership of the programme.

You are responsible for ensuring the honest and timely reporting on the position of the project to the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority, while it remains on the GMPP and for providing reports and information to DfT’s ExCo sub-committees as required.

Reporting should include carbon measurement and other sustainable development goals demonstrating evidence that the project contributes to an overarching environmental strategy and is aligned with defined net zero pathways. Information on the project will be published annually by the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority.

As part of the government’s commitment to transparency on major projects, you are responsible for publishing on GOV.UK:

• the full business case and depositing a copy in the House of Commons library within 4 months of HM Treasury’s formal approval

• a summary of the accounting officer assessment completed in line with the approval of the outline business case, successive updates, and summaries of any subsequent assessments should they be required

• a close-out report after the A66 Northern Trans-Pennine project has completed

Guidance on the publication of business cases and on the completion of accounting officer assessments is available from HM Treasury.

Evaluation

Evaluation of major projects is a requirement. Given the scale and complexity of major projects, they must be evaluated properly to learn lessons and help ensure accountability. As an SRO of a GMPP project, you are responsible for ensuring that your project has proportionate and suitably resourced evaluation in place.

Evaluation planning should begin from the very start of the policy development and the initiation of the project. Progress with the development and implementation of evaluation plans will be monitored through the major project assurance process.

You are also responsible for registering all planned, live and completed evaluations on the government evaluation registry. Guidance on using the evaluation registry is available on GOV.UK.

Development and support

As SRO of a GMPP project, you are required to complete the major projects leadership academy, which you have already started and will see through to completion.

To widen experience and understanding of the role, SROs are also expected to become accredited assurance reviewers and to lead or participate in such reviews for other government departments, the wider public sector, and other areas of DfT as appropriate.

Becoming an assurance reviewer and completing a review will form part of your time at the major projects leadership academy. To maintain your accreditation, you will be required to participate in a review at least once every 12 months.

The department will assist you in securing the necessary resources to support the A66 Northern Trans-Pennine project, and will set clear guidance, requirements and standards, which align to the government functional standard on project delivery, to enable good governance and effective delivery. You will be part of the department’s cohort of major project leaders who will be expected to support each other, share good practice and lessons learned and to collectively develop solutions. You should liaise with the department’s head of profession for project delivery to discuss the maintenance and development of your delivery and leadership skills.

The National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority and government project delivery will be available to you for support, advice and assurance throughout the project’s time on the GMPP. See the government project delivery’s suite of standards, guidance, tools, templates and services. We encourage you and your team to register for accounts.

Following approval of the business case and designation as a Tier 1 project, the department will provide ongoing oversight and support and will take steps to help resolve and escalate risks, issues or constraints that are acting as a blocker to successful delivery.

We would like to take this opportunity to wish you every success in your role as SRO.

Yours sincerely,

[Signed]

Jo Shanmugalingam

Permanent Secretary, Department for Transport

[Signed]

Karina Singh

Government Head of Profession for Project Delivery and the Deputy Government Head of Function

National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority

Confirmation of acceptance of appointment

I confirm that I accept the appointment of senior responsible owner for the A66 Northern Trans-Pennine project, including my personal accountability for implementation, as set out in the letter above.

Tim Gamon

17 July 2026