Recommendation 2

The Treasury and the Bank have not yet put in place the conditions necessary for the Bank to be a successful and long-lasting institution. The government wants the Bank to be a “long-lasting institution”, providing financing for infrastructure projects well into the future. The £22 billion made available to the Bank covers its first five years of operation; beyond then, the Treasury expects the Bank to be self- financing. However, there is no guarantee the Bank will achieve this, with little clarity over whether the Treasury will provide further funding in the future. If the Bank does prove to be profitable, there is little to prevent it being sold off, in a similar manner to the sale of the Green Investment Bank in 2017, beyond assurances from Treasury officials that government wants to keep it within the public sector. Staffing challenges are acting as a brake on the Bank’s ambition, as its capacity to 6 The Creation of the UK Infrastructure Bank make complex and innovative deals is limited by a lack of suitably qualified staff. Currently there are 16 permanent employees, a significant shortfall against its plan of having 270 in place by September 2023. The remaining 150 or so staff are contractors or Treasury secondees. The Bank is also reliant on the Treasury in other ways, including its IT systems for day-to-day operations. Recommendation: • The Treasury and the Bank should report to Parliament six-monthly on the roll-out of the Bank, including updates on recruitment, deals made and progress towards the operation of their own internal systems (e.g., IT systems). This should include timescales for future milestones. • The Treasury needs to be much clearer in its reporting of its expectations of the Bank, including its financing support, its plans for taking dividends, and the long-term ownership plans by defining more clearly what it means by the phrase ‘long-lasting institution’.