Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 28
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 told us that the aim of the strategy is to improve project delivery by bringing government thinking into what it is going to do and fund over a 10-year period. NISTA said previous strategies were over a shorter five-year period, which was not long enough to improve project delivery. NISTA said the strategy is the first step in enabling a clearer picture, where everything is far more visible and organisations and people can be held to account much more clearly.52 In written evidence submitted to us, the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) recommended that independent oversight of government delivery should be part of NISTA’s governance structure, so that it has a clear role to proactively challenge the government and not shy away from difficult conversations. ICE also recommends that NISTA holds government accountable for developing and committing to a prioritised, stable pipeline of investible projects aligned with society’s needs.53
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".