The current approach to increasing infrastructure resilience is disjointed and piecemeal. There is a lack of overview, a lack of coordination, there are issues with funding, regulation and planning and an overall failure to recognise interdependency. The following key areas need to be addressed:
Interdependency
The UK´s infrastructure assets form an interdependent network. A single failure can cascade across the network of critical infrastructure, rendering otherwise unaffected sectors inoperable1. This means that one asset requires another in order to function properly; for example, a water treatment plant cannot function without electricity and an electricity production plant will not work without a water supply.
The UK´s current infrastructure defence system fails to recognise this vital interdependency. At present work is carried out on individual assets by individual agencies, or separate bodies work independently to address different threats, without any real overview of how each is linked to the others.
The need for an overview
The government has taken some steps to increase the resilience of our critical infrastructure. Recent initiatives include:
- CPNI working with asset owners to combat terrorism
- The Natural Hazards Team within the Cabinet Office Civil Contingencies Secretariat
- The new flood forecasting centre created by the Met Office and the Environment Agency set up in direct response to the Pitt Review recommendation that the two bodies work more closely together2.
While it is valuable, the above work focuses on individual aspects of resilience and operates within different departments. In addition, on a day-to-day basis, agencies, local authorities, regulators, asset owners, and the emergency services all work separately in their individual regions and sectors, with little scope for sharing information or joint forward-planning.
Worrying gaps are therefore present in our approach to critical infrastructure defence. Terrorism is addressed in isolation by the CPNI, emergency planning is dealt with separately by the Civil Contingencies Secretariat, a new team has only just been set up to tackle the effects of climate change, long-term system failure is ignored, and no one is overseeing the resilience of the whole infrastructure network.
A single point of authority to defend critical infrastructure is desperately needed to provide a vital overview and counter silo thinking.
ICE recommends that these issues could be addressed through the creation of an overview role, such as that given to the Environment Agency for flood defence, designed to assist government in addressing the political short-termism that is so detrimental to protecting critical infrastructure. This would help to broker long-term cross-party consensus on essential work. It is vital that risk management assessment, not political point scoring, be used to determine the funding of the defence of critical infrastructure.
The single point of authority would:
- Work with CPNI, and the Civil Contingencies Secretariat and lead government departments, plus the sector based regulators to ensure that they are working together and adequately protecting infrastructure
- Communicate with government, local authorities, the emergency services and the public and support them in implementing resilience guidelines
- Address the gaps in the areas of infrastructure defence currently being overlooked
- Provide the vital overview of critical infrastructure which the UK lacks and work to achieve resilience and add reserve capacity
The authority would also liaise regularly with the key engineering institutions and ensure that sufficient technical ability and engineering expertise exists throughout Whitehall to inform government decisions on infrastructure resilience as called for in the recent Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee report3. The present lack of technical understanding on the part of policy-makers and politicians compromises decisions and affects government´s ability to act as an intelligent client.
"The inter-dependencies between different infrastructure systems are sometimes overlooked. In common with most businesses, companies that provide infrastructure services themselves rely on energy, telecommunications, transport and water. A failure in one area can cascade into an event with a wider socio-economic impact."
Buro Happold/CIC
"It is vital to the future economy of the UK that costly adaptation decisions are based on robust scientific evidence: to minimise costs, as well as risks to infrastructure and life."
Met Office
"New national rules and unifying legislation need to be developed to allow consistent application of duties and powers, so that threats to infrastructure are managed in the same way across various boundaries (eg between landowners and local authorities). Without this consistent national framework, local considerations will overshadow efforts to deliver a joined up, consistent approach."
Network Rail
Asset knowledge
"One of the largest risks is the limited knowledge we have of much of our infrastructure, in terms of location, nature, condition, and impact of failure. The disparate datasets for assets, in particular networks, makes the understanding of total risk difficult to assess."
Arup
Evidence from all sectors suggests that there is a lack of knowledge of infrastructure assets. If we are to protect our infrastructure we must first know what and where it is. It is likely that this lack of knowledge is one of the causes of inadequate funding for infrastructure maintenance.
Despite this incomplete knowledge of infrastructure networks, CPNI have taken steps to identify and protect the most vital critical infrastructure assets by creating a national asset database, an excellent step towards protecting critical infrastructure. The United States has taken similar measures to protect its critical infrastructure, including creating a list of high priority sites4. This CPNI database can and
should be used as a starting point for protecting and mapping infrastructure.
Once our assets are mapped the government must improve its accounting system to adequately recognise the cost and value of critical infrastructure. The single point of authority must ensure that the government carries out necessary cost benefit analysis of critical infrastructure – the cost of building and maintaining a piece of infrastructure compared to the cost to society, the environment and the economy were it to fail.
Maintenance funding
"Much more emphasis needs to be placed upon routine maintenance of existing assets across all sectors."
Network Rail
Infrastructure accounts for much of the nation´s investments5. Past governments and the private sector have invested considerable sums in our built environment. The total value of existing civil engineering works in the UK is £799.4 billion6. If infrastructure is such a large part of the UK´s assets, should we not protect our investment? The need for maintenance is not just due to our ageing infrastructure - maintenance of infrastructure should be a perpetual, ongoing commitment. Routine maintenance of existing critical infrastructure assets reduces the risk of failure.
Maintenance is currently funded by revenue budgets rather than capital budgets. Revenue budgets are often under more pressure than capital budgets because they are ongoing, rather than one-off expenditures. Furthermore, revenue based maintenance budgets are often the first to be cut in difficult financial times7.
The government and regulators must ensure that maintenance funding is ringfenced. This will ensure that even if budgets are tight, money intended for ongoing maintenance will not end up spent elsewhere.
The format of the national accounts should be reviewed to ensure that the ongoing costs of maintaining infrastructure are much clearer, and to ensure politicians suffer as much criticism for a decline in the value of our fixed assets as they do for a drop in GDP.
Top of page
1 Edwards, C. (April 2009). Resilient Nation. A report by Demos.
2 Pitt, M. (June 2008). Learning lessons from the 2007 floods: An independent review by Sir Michael Pitt. A review commissioned by the UK Secretaries of State.
3 Engineering: turning ideas into reality (27 March 2009). House of Commons Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee. Published by authority of the House of Commons London: The Stationery Office Limited.
4 Moteff, J. (10 October 2008). Critical Infrastructures: Background, Policy, and Implementation. CRS Report for Congress prepared for Members and Committees of Congress. pp 28.
5 Bosher, L. (2009) Addressing the challenges and impediments to building national, regional and local resilience: A built environment perspective. Presented at the '4th International Conference on Integrated Disaster Management', 1st -2nd March 2009. Tehran, Iran.
6 Spending Review. HM Treasury. Retrieved on 18 April 2009
7 Goodman, S. & Hastak, M. (2006) Infrastructure Planning Handbook: Planning, Engineering, and Economics. London: McGraw Hill.
|
