The Future Infrastructure Leaders Forum, a joint initiative by Infrastructure Matters and PwC, brings together a select group of next generation leaders from the UK’s pre-eminent infrastructure organisations. This group, with support from both IM and PwC, have been regularly coming together for the past year to collaborate on the key challenges facing UK infrastructure; challenges that they as future leaders, will eventually inherit.
Start with why
A renewed sense of pride and optimism towards infrastructure and the UK’s ability to deliver it will be essential to create the conditions for success. This will require better storytelling, clearer and more compelling problem statements and a different approach to building public and political consensus in the early stages of infrastructure projects.
Recommendation: Government must ensure that problem statements for new infrastructure projects are clear, concise, compelling, and subject to cross-party scrutiny.
A complexity complex
A shift in mindset and approach is required to eradicate unnecessary complexity from the specification, development and delivery or projects, all of which drives up cost, extends timescales and impedes efficiency.
Recommendation: A “Minimum Viable Product” philosophy must be explored to reduce requirements to the essentials necessary to address the problem statement and prioritise standardisation and speed in delivery.
Be more IKEA
Projects should adopt the “price first” strategy often seen in the consumer sector, designing a target price designed at the outset and ruthlessly adhering to it to force creative engineering and construction solutions. A more realistic basis for evaluating the benefits of infrastructure projects – and an acceptable target price – will be key.
Recommendation: The business case regime must be reviewed to drive greater realism into the benefit and cost components of economic viability assessments. A design-to-cost pilot should be conducted, and disincentives for external change strengthened.
A little less conversation
Getting a shovel in the ground has become too expensive and unwieldy. A bolder approach is needed for infrastructure that is critical to the national interest to dramatically reduce the uncertainty, cost and time associated with planning.
Recommendation: A sovereign infrastructure register should be established, in conjunction with an accelerated decision pathway and enhanced compensation framework.
Infrastructure unleashed
A paradigm-shift in innovation is needed to drive bold transformation across the sector. Public sector innovation funding should be pooled with private capital into a collective infra tech fund to drive greater scale, pace and impact.
Recommendation: Innovation investments from individual projects should be consolidated into a collective Infra-tech fund, which would also bring in private capital from major industry players and acquire equity stakes in pertinent start-ups or scale-ups.
- Start with why: A renewed sense of pride and optimism towards infrastructure and the UK’s ability to deliver it will be essential to create the conditions for success. This will require better storytelling, clearer and more compelling problem statements and a different approach to building public and political consensus in the early stages of infrastructure projects.
Recommendation: Government must ensure that problem statements for new infrastructure projects are clear, concise, compelling, and subject to cross-party scrutiny.
- A complexity complex: A shift in mindset and approach is required to eradicate unnecessary complexity from the specification, development and delivery or projects, all of which drives up cost, extends timescales and impedes efficiency.
Recommendation: A “Minimum Viable Product” philosophy must be explored to reduce requirements to the essentials necessary to address the problem statement and prioritise standardisation and speed in delivery.
- Be more IKEA: Projects should adopt the “price first” strategy often seen in the consumer sector, designing a target price designed at the outset and ruthlessly adhering to it to force creative engineering and construction solutions. A more realistic basis for evaluating the benefits of infrastructure projects – and an acceptable target price – will be key.
Recommendation: The business case regime must be reviewed to drive greater realism into the benefit and cost components of economic viability assessments. A design-to-cost pilot should be conducted, and disincentives for external change strengthened.
- A little less conversation: Getting a shovel in the ground has become too expensive and unwieldy. A bolder approach is needed for infrastructure that is critical to the national interest to dramatically reduce the uncertainty, cost and time associated with planning.
Recommendation: A sovereign infrastructure register should be established, in conjunction with an accelerated decision pathway and enhanced compensation framework.
- Infrastructure unleashed: A paradigm-shift in innovation is needed to drive bold transformation across the sector. Public sector innovation funding should be pooled with private capital into a collective infra tech fund to drive greater scale, pace and impact.
Recommendation: Innovation investments from individual projects should be consolidated into a collective Infra-tech fund, which would also bring in private capital from major industry players and acquire equity stakes in pertinent start-ups or scale-ups.
