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New Department for Infrastructure key to delivering vital UK infrastructure

A new Department for Infrastructure (DfI) outlined this week by former transport minister Stephen Hammond would, he said, complement not replace the National Infrastructure Commission proposed by Sir John Armitt and the Labour party. 

Launching his ACE backed paper setting out the idea of a new DfI Hammond said that while he felt Armitt’s proposed commission was not the way to accelerate infrastructure delivery, it did provide a useful mechanism for  challenging and prioritising projects.

“My personal problem is that the National Infrastructure Commission is just too clunky,” he said at the report launch highlighting that the suggested process for prioritising and delivering projects remained too longwinded.

“Streamlined and working within a new DfI, however, an NIC could provide the rigorous analysis that restores confidence to government pronouncements on infrastructure needs." Hammond

“If Sir John could streamline his proposal it would be better,” he said. “However, if you really want to speed up infrastructure delivery it won’t come from Sir John’s proposal. But it could serve as a really interesting as the auditor of the National Infrastructure Plan.”

In his paper Hammond clearly points out in the report that Armitt’s proposed National Infrastructure Commission does not, alone, hold the key to transforming UK infrastructure delivery.

“My own view is that, while this is seeking answers to the right questions, what is proposed will not accomplish the ends to which it aspires,” he said. “The time it would take to deliver in the first place and in terms of subsequent National Infrastructure Assessments, as well as the uncertain politics behind it all, make this an incomplete solution.”

He adds: “Streamlined and working within a new DfI, however, an NIC could provide the rigorous analysis that restores confidence to government pronouncements on infrastructure needs. A DfI could then set about devising a strategy and implementing policies that would demonstrably follow from a strong position that would also engender greater cross-party consensus.”

In the report the ACE agreed with Hammond that the two bodies can exist side by side with the NIC providing “robust analysis envisaged by the Armitt Commission” for the new DfI in a similar way that the Office of Budget Responsibility currently sits within Treasury, 

“My personal problem is that the National Infrastructure Commission is just too clunky," Stephen Hammond

“The debate on how to better organise central government to deliver the necessary economic infrastructure has begun in earnest in recent months,” says the report. “The proposal of an NIC by Sir John Armitt is one of the major ideas occupying the territory at the current time, however, in ACE’s view a DfI and a NIC may not be completely mutually exclusive.”

Hammond’s proposal for a new Department for Infrastructure is set out in the ACE’s latest position paper and designed to stimulate debate in the industry on the topic.

The radical plan would create a new department with responsibility for leading and advising on the conception, formulation, project design, coordination, and delivery of all strategic economic infrastructure at central government level. 

It would also be expected to work closely with relevant delivery bodies on the necessary linkages between these new strategic networks, to ensure they are fully integrated into existing assets. 

However, responsibilities for the operation and maintenance of existing infrastructure, as well as the formulation of strategy for new non-strategic infrastructure would, said the report, remain with the existing departments.

“Now is the time for major institutional change within Whitehall,” said Hammond highlighting the ability of a new DfI to remove two departments completely and absorbing some functions of at least one other.

“But this is not change for change’s sake,” he added. “It is change for a real purpose that overcomes the silo mentality.”

 

See analysis of the proposal by ACE policy director Julian Francis here

If you would like to contact Antony Oliver about this, or any other story, please email antony.oliver@infrastructure-intelligence.com.