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Paul Jowitt

Why the Adonis Infrastructure Commission needs a systems approach

A view on Chancellor George Osborne’s proposed National Infrastructure Commission by past ICE president Paul Jowitt.

When the Tories won the General Election earlier this year, most of us thought that the Labour-commissioned Armitt Report was a dead duck. But George Osborne has this week dipped like a pickpocket into Labour’s manifesto and with a flourish rebranded it as the Adonis Infrastructure Commission.

What’s not to like? The construction sector and all those concerned with the nation’s infrastructure will surely welcome it.

"There will always be controversy. That is life. But controversies are best assuaged by having the evidence, the objectives and scope of the decision in the open."

Of course, we don’t know the details yet. How will it be constituted? At what level will it operate? How will it set the appropriate systems boundaries? Will it extend to Scotland? What decision criteria will it use - for whom and when – or just the Treasury Green Book? And how transparent will it be?

Whatever, it’s precisely what many of us have advocated for years.

The Infrastructure Sector, “the Builders” – to reclaim another phrase hijacked by the Chancellor – should be jubilant.  But I would urge some caution.

Viewing the Adonis Commission simply as a mechanism for generating a long pipeline of infrastructure projects would be naïve. Yes, engineers like building stuff, but this is about much more than that. The Commission should not simply be an echo of the sector’s many voices.

It needs a big picture approach – a systems view.

In the wake of the 2010 General Election, the Government took a “very big” picture decision. Well, to be precise, it took a decision which affected the big picture. It chose High Speed Rail over the Severn Barrage. Some of us questioned that.

"The need for systems-level decision-making for large-scale infrastructure proposals has never been greater."

So if the options - and a preference – had been within the purview of the Adonis Commission, we would expect some transparency in the evidence.

And even if the preference had been for High Speed Rail, to what extent would we have expected the Adonis Commission to have settled not just on the concept of High Speed Rail, but also the strategic routes (Birmingham to London or interconnectivity between the North and Scotland to the Midlands – and then the specific route?).

HS2 – upon which we now seem fixated - was just one option within several competing alternatives which were cast aside with little public discourse, or for that matter, little discourse within the engineering profession.  If the Adonis Commission can address this evidence gap objectively, then we can be truly supportive.

"Problems are exacerbated if the basis of the decisions is unclear and the systems boundaries surrounding them are ill-defined (or not defined at all)"

In the 1970s we had the Roskill Commission on the next London Airport.  Forty years on, we have the Davies Commission. Even the options are familiar – including some in the Thames Estuary! The Roskill Commission recommendations crashed – twice! There are many other examples in recent memory of infrastructure stasis with historic parallels. The Adonis Infrastructure Commission offers real hope that we can cut through all his and make the key decisions that will serve present and future generations well.

That major infrastructure projects of the present day are almost always controversial is not surprising, but the problems are exacerbated if the basis of the decisions is unclear and the systems boundaries surrounding them are ill-defined (or not defined at all).

The need for systems-level decision-making for large-scale infrastructure proposals has never been greater. One way or the other, it comes down to our ability to take a systems view and make decisions accordingly.

There will always be controversy.  That is life. But controversies are best assuaged by having the evidence, the objectives and scope of the decision in the open. The engineer’s role in this process is vital.

Paul Jowitt is the ICE Past President 2009-10