Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 6
44th Report - Governance and decision-making on major projects
Published 10 Sep 2025
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee Governance and decision-making on major projects All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
It is not clear how NISTA and the Treasury will be held to account for delivery of their infrastructure strategy and pipeline. It is now critical that NISTA and the Treasury deliver on the commitments they have set out. NISTA believes that the role of setting infrastructure strategy is better situated inside government because the advice it received from the independent National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) was not always aligned with government policy. NISTA told us that it is retaining the NIC’s advisory council to ensure there is a strong voice from industry experts to influence government strategy. However, there is a risk that bringing the NIC’s strategic role into government could leave an absence of independent scrutiny over the effectiveness of the Treasury and NISTA’s delivery of the infrastructure strategy. recommendation In its Treasury Minute Response, the Treasury and NISTA should set out how they intend to report annually on progress against delivery of its strategy, as well as what arrangements it will make for this to be independently assured. 6 1 Changes to strategic governance of projects Introduction
From: Public Accounts Committee, 44th Report - Governance and decision-making on major projects (HC 642), 10 September 2025
Government response
Latest Treasury Minutes progress report to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Forty-fourth Report of Session 2024-26
The government responded to the whole report on 4 June 2026 (deadline 10 November 2025).
Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Forty-Fourth report from Session 2024-26
Published 19 January 2026.
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government states that it "agrees with the Committee's recommendation" in each of the responses set out, with some marked as implemented and others given target dates.
- On the Committee's request for a 12-month update on mega-project governance, the government agrees, with a target implementation date of September 2026; the Treasury "will write to the Committee".
- On the £10 billion mega-project threshold and on alignment with Mission and place-based governance, the government agrees and records both recommendations as implemented, stating the Treasury "has written to the Committee".
- On assurance, NISTA "will be reviewing and consulting on the assurance framework holistically"; the Treasury will tie higher Delegated Authority Limits to departments evidencing compliance with standards.
- On reporting, the government agrees; NISTA "will consider how" existing reporting can be integrated with reporting against the Strategy, and the infrastructure pipeline "will be updated at least every six months".