Source · Select Committees · Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee
Recommendation 6
6
Paragraph: 48
The Cabinet Office needs to take a more active lead on co-ordinating infrastructure investment in...
Conclusion
The Cabinet Office needs to take a more active lead on co-ordinating infrastructure investment in line with a national strategy. It should be involved in the early stages of Delivering the Government’s infrastructure commitments through major projects 33 project development and lead on co-ordinating the national infrastructure effort. The Committee would like to see evidence of this work in the IPA’s annual reports and it will raise with the Permanent Secretary at the Cabinet Office and Head of the IPA at regular scrutiny sessions.
Paragraph Reference:
48
Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government
Acknowledged
Government shares the Committee’s view that projects and programmes should be set up for success from their initial policy stages, and that early-stage involvement, including with controls, is essential to this. The Cabinet Office is currently undergoing a short review being conducted by Lord Maude looking at this, in line with increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of Government spending. Cabinet Office, including the IPA, is supporting HM Treasury in producing the NIS which will set out a long term view with improved delivery and performance as a central pillar. Alongside this the Infrastructure Delivery Taskforce, ‘Project Speed’, is led collaboratively with No,10, HMT, the IPA and the Cabinet Office, with the infrastructure departments as required. The taskforce aims to cut down the time it takes to develop, design and deliver vital infrastructure projects. For example, it will look at identifying blocks to progress. Projects will include the 40 new hospitals the government has committed to build and the school rebuilding programme. The IPA has put in place the Get to Green programme which will establish the new framework, new assurance and support arrangements for departments in improving project delivery. The IPA have also published the National Infrastructure and Construction Procurement Pipeline 20201 which has provided short-medium term certainty to the construction sector during Covid-19. The pipeline set out up to £37 billion of contracts across economic and social infrastructure. It is the Government’s strong ambition to use these initiatives as a catalyst to continually seek further improvement across the UK’s major projects, delivering benefits nationally in coordinated fashion. The IPA currently details work across both the project delivery and infrastructure systems in Annual Reports and will look to include more information on support in the early development of projects going forward. The IPA looks forward to informing you of the progress we are making at the regular scrutiny sessions.