Announced earlier today, Civil Service World summarised the announcement by the National Infrastructure Commission as requiring a cash boost and ‘ambition’ (see their article here) Doesn’t it sound ‘same old, same old’?
And won’t we get more of the ‘same old’ if we’re stuck with the same governance systems?
Question: To what extent are those ‘significant deficiencies related to governance structures that underpin the economic infrastructure? For example privatised utilities that enabled huge sums to be extracted from the industry and not invested in say reservoirs?
“Long term review sets out pressing need to modernise infrastructure to support economic growth and climate action”
The National Infrastructure Commission led with the above-headline here. There is a school of economic thought – in environmental economics that economic growth and meaningful climate action are incompatible – they are mutually exclusive. You can’t have economic growth on neo-liberal terms (which inevitably means increasing the inputs) *and* have meaningful climate action to stop the catastrophic rise in average global temperatures. There is a further school of thought that sounds familiar to people in the public sector: “Do more with less”. Either use fewer inputs (and often in the UK’s case, fewer imports that have big transport climate miles) or redesign what you so so that you no longer need to use them in the first place. Think of the milkmen in their electric milk floats of generations past, where empty bottles would be picked up, cleaned, and re-used. Compare that with the mountains of plastic used in supermarkets today.
‘Modernising our infrastructure’ – for how long can politicians talk about it before the general public start expect to see specifics, and then building to start?
You can see various examples where ‘modernising our infrastructure’ has been mentioned in ministerial speeches over the past decade or so in the Government’s news page. Yet such has been the political instability with the Conservative Governments (in particular since 2015 – ironic given their rhetoric against ‘unstable coalitions’) that costs with various high profile projects such as HS2, have spiralled. Crossrail also had its problems and yet I wonder how often the results of the various inquiries circulate back into industry and university civil engineering departments to change/improve the way how large infrastructure projects are managed? Or is the problem at the Political end? Mindful that ministerial and parliamentary offices are two of the most high profile occupations where no formal training or academic qualifications are required. In which case, how do you overhaul this? (The House of Lords Library wrote about training senior civil servants and government ministers in 2021 here).
“What did the National Infrastructure Commission recommend?”
On the thematic recommendations – stuff that applies across the piece, their top three asks are these:
- policy stability: setting out a clear plan and sticking to it, to lend certainty to investors and help build up supply chains
- pro-investment regulation: clear guidance from government on priorities, investment ahead of need and business models to support emerging technologies
- speeding up the planning system for major projects, particularly energy transmission schemes: with regularly updated National Policy Statements from government, strategic spatial planning, more effective sharing of environmental data and clearer community benefits in return for hosting key infrastructure.
Pro-investment regulation is one that sets out in advance what the long term direction of regulations will be. For example that newbuild homes will be required to meeting ever tighter standards on heat loss for example. Another one could be requiring rental properties to meet similar, ever tighter standards on insulation. Yet as we have seen, there’s no point in having the laws in place if you’re not going to fund the testing and enforcement mechanisms. Or in the case of the building and construction industry, there the entire industry as a whole ends up compromised across the piece – including politicians and ministers.
Cambridge gets a mention in the contexts of East-West-Rail, and water stress
“The government announced plans in July 2023 to accelerate water supply infrastructure in Cambridge because water scarcity is constraining potential housing and economic growth”
NIC (Oct 2023) p118
It’s all very well for ministers to put money into upgrading Cambridge’s water infrastructure but ministers and MPs on Government back benches put in place a system that enabled the weak regulation and the asset-stripping of water companies – firms which like the high street brands that went bust in the 2010s, are loaded with debt.
“Since privatisation, shareholders have been paid £72bn in dividends. The cash has come from big debts, with companies having borrowed £56bn, and big bills, with prices having risen 40%.”
The Guardian 16 Aug 2022
Above borrowing huge sums to pay for bosses bonuses and shareholder dividends is something that both politicians and regulators should never have allowed – and is also something that auditors should have flagged up too. What any in-depth investigation would reveal in terms of who was at fault for what I don’t know. But it is something the proponents of, and the decision-makers who decided on privatisation should be cross-examined on. If they are still around that is.
Does everything need to be so centralised?”
It will be interesting to see what the manifestos say in the next year or so.
…only time and again I keep reading how ‘communities’ want to move further and faster than ministers will allow them to. The joys of an over-centralised system.
I struggle to see how the recommendations from the NIC will be implemented without first of all a change of government, and then an overhaul of governance structures. Interestingly, the report says they expect ministers to respond in the next 12 months. By that time, the general election could have been and gone.
Alternatively, both parties might provide their own responses to the report for voters to judge them on.
Which might make for interesting reading for a few of us!
Food for thought?
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