Recommendation 28

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