ICE submission to PAC inquiry on delivering value from government investment in major programmes

The ICE’s submission to the committee highlighted:

• Planning infrastructure strategically can unlock value for the economy, society, and the environment.

  Setting up a robust strategic planning process enables governments to clearly identify their needs, allowing them to set up infrastructure pipelines they need to deliver on them both now and in the future.

• The Enabling Better Infrastructure (EBI) programme, convened by the ICE, works with governments to deliver value from investments in major infrastructure programmes by helping them strengthen their strategic planning process.

• The EBI programme has identified key steps for setting up a strategic planning approach.

  The steps set out a universal process which can be tailored to suit a country’s specific objectives, governance, and political context, where it can help place economic, social, and environmental benefits at the heart of infrastructure design and delivery.

• Strategic infrastructure planning is not a one-off activity.

  Planning infrastructure forms part of a regular process of reflection and review, where governments need to continually assess service needs and translate these into tangible programmes for delivering on them.

• In a UK context, the government and the industry have made important strides in recent years in improving infrastructure delivery of major capital projects, notably the development of the Construction Playbook and the refresh of the Transforming Infrastructure Performance programme.
• This means that many of the tools and approaches needed to embed sustainable outcomes while delivering projects at the pace and scale required exist. However, they must be better enforced.