Armitt urges infrastructure planning changes to improve delivery

5 Sep 13
A new system for proposing and approving major projects should be introduced to provide long-term plans for infrastructure, as the country is ‘increasingly struggling to cope’, an expert commissioned by the Labour party to devise reforms has said.

By Mark Smulian | 5 September 2013

A new system for proposing and approving major projects should be introduced to provide long-term plans for infrastructure, as the country is ‘increasingly struggling to cope’, an expert commissioned by the Labour party to devise reforms has said.

Sir John Armitt, former chair of the Olympic Delivery Authority and chief executive of Network Rail, said that an independent National Infrastructure Commission should be set up to identify the UK’s long-term infrastructure needs and monitor the plans developed by governments to meet them.

He argued that this approach would allow the country to prepare for population growth and climate change.

Armitt said the new commission should look 25-30 years ahead at the evidence for the need for significant national infrastructure and set clear priorities.

It would make a national infrastructure assessment every 10 years, which would have to be followed within six months by a Parliamentary vote.

Within a further year Whitehall departments would have to form detailed 10-year plans of how they would deliver and fund work towards these priorities.

Parliament would then vote on these decade-long departmental plans and the commission would report to Parliament annually on their delivery.

Armitt said: ‘Over the last 40 years UK infrastructure has fallen behind the rest of the world and is increasingly struggling to cope with the demands we make of it.

‘London 2012 proved we are capable of planning and delivering complex and innovative infrastructure projects with local and national cross-party support. We did it right for the Games and now we need to apply the lessons we’ve learned to other areas and services we need to improve to cope with the challenges ahead.’

His report said there was ‘little ground for concern over the UK’s ability to build major projects’ and ‘no shortage of appetite amongst financial institutions to invest in the UK’s infrastructure, providing that the balance between risk and return is structured appropriately’.

Difficulties stemmed from successive governments having failed to set strategic priorities for infrastructure based on clear projections of future needs.

The lack of clarity around the UK’s long-term needs has made it difficult to sustain cross-party political consensus on controversial infrastructure issues, resulting in a ‘stop-start’ approach to investment, the report concluded.

Armitt said privatisation had further complicated strategic planning since much infrastructure was in private hands, in particular in water and electricity.

This had caused ‘a blurring of accountability for creating sufficient infrastructure capacity over the long term’.

Welcoming the report, shadow chancellor Ed Balls said: ‘For decades successive governments have all too often ducked and delayed the vital decisions we need to make on Britain’s long-term infrastructure.

‘The Olympics showed what can be done when there is cross-party consensus and a sense of national purpose. Now we need that same drive and spirit to plan ahead for the next thirty years and the needs of future generations.’

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