Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 23
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)
NISTA is combining strategy and delivery of infrastructure and will be responsible for overseeing the implementation of the 10-year infrastructure strategy, supported by a project pipeline, with industry, regulators and departments.44 NISTA told us that merging the Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA) and National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) into NISTA and making it part of the Treasury means NISTA will be greater than the sum of its parts with strategy, delivery, decision making and the money side all in one place. NISTA told us it has a much broader remit in terms of sectors compared to the NIC and IPA. It has six initial objectives, which include 40 Q 12 41 Q 58 42 Qq 16-17 43 Q 18 44 C&AG Report, para 3 15 overcoming barriers to delivery, enhancing and simplifying assurance, being head of function and profession for project delivery, publishing the pipeline, and spatial planning.45
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".