Infrastructure projects need more local input

MPs have said that more local input is needed if the UK's biggest infrastructure projects are to deliver their desired socio-economic benefits.

The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee has warned that government plans to boost growth and ‘level up’ the economy need to be well thought through, responsive to local need, and delivered through effective, efficient and transparent major projects.

It cautions that the hundreds of billions dedicated by the government for new infrastructure projects risk being squandered without better co-ordination of local projects, long-term tracking of performance and greater transparency over delivery. The latest committee report calls on ministers to clarify its overall aims for major infrastructure spending as soon as possible and provide greater detail on how it will support economic development and regional growth.

The Major Projects Portfolio currently comprises 125 projects worth £448 billion including some of the largest, most risky and most innovative programmes of work undertaken by government in the UK. Current major projects include infrastructure, such as Heathrow expansion and Crossrail; welfare reforms, including Universal Credit and 30 hrs free childcare; and military programmes, including HMS Queen Elizabeth.

Despite new funding pledges, the committee finds that the overall aims of this significant boost in infrastructure spending remain ill-defined. It says that the government must clarify what it means by ‘levelling up’ and set out a coherent plan for co-ordinated infrastructure investment that will deliver defined long-term benefits at a local and national level. Greater detail must also be provided on the data that will be used to assess performance, including how this will be recorded and published.

Furthermore, the report says that the principle factor in judging the success of a project must be how much it realises its stated benefits, not simply whether it has been delivered on time or on budget.

William Wragg, chair of the committee, said: “Developing grand infrastructure projects must not become an end in itself and we must move away from the short-term view that measures the value of major projects in terms of whether they are finished on time and at the expected cost. As the nation embarks on a period of significant infrastructure spending we must focus on how much they deliver the benefits they set out to achieve and were the basis for being given the go ahead.
     
“The government must clarify its overarching aims for this strategy – how infrastructure spending will support economic growth, what ‘levelling up’ means in practice and how they will be achieved. We must also see improvement in how projects are developed at a local level. It will be critical not just to get local support for infrastructure projects, but getting local input in identifying problems and developing solutions must be better supported and become a feature of programme development at a much earlier stage.
     
“Investing time at the outset to make sure everyone is clear about the aims and proposed benefits, alongside a change in the culture of how major projects are developed and managed, should mean that this transformative change is achievable.”

David Renard, Local Government Association planning spokesman, said: “The committee is absolutely right to say the government’s infrastructure projects need to be more responsive to local need, with local support and local input. To do this the government should engage with councils on projects at the earliest stage, to ensure the voice of local communities is heard.

“Our own recent polling found that 71 per cent of residents trust their council and three quarters are satisfied with the way their local council runs things in their area. This emphasises how important it is that councils and the communities they represent have a say on how their local areas develop, as we recover from the Covid-19 crisis. This is also why it is absolutely critical that we need to maintain a planning system that is locally-led and democratically accountable.”