Earlier this month, 91¶¶Òù members heard from Julia Prescott CBE, Deputy Chair of the National Infrastructure Commission and colleagues about the advice the NIC is providing to Government ahead of the launch of the ten-year infrastructure strategy expected to accompany publication of the current Spending Review, kindly hosted by Field Consulting at their new offices at Sea Containers House.
The roundtable provoked a wide-ranging discussion, with takeaways including:
1. A New National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority is coming down the track
Julia outlined how the strategy will establish a project pipeline for the coming decade, with a newly-formed National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) in operation from 1 April, bringing together different parties involved in delivery. The pipeline will clearly articulate project investment opportunities and will seek to engage with the market and supply chains at an early stage to drive value for money.
2. NISTA won’t shy away from specifics
The pipeline will also set out a funding envelope within which there will be a comprehensive list of projects which gets more speculative towards the end of the ten-year period. There will be three broad categories of project:
- Mature projects actively seeking procurement
- Projects with a good likelihood of getting to construction stage
- Projects that have been developed but for which funding is not yet determined.
3. Firms are calling for collaborative financing approaches
Several participants stressed the importance of considering different funding models for delivery, learning lessons from the collaborative financing approaches which secured Crossrail and the Northern Line extension. In January we published a research report with WSP which proposed a new land value generation model to better capture value from residential development and deploy it to accelerate the delivery of new infrastructure, by evolving the current Tax Increment Finance (TIF) model.
4. NISTA will remain independent
Although NISTA will sit within Government as a joint unit of the Treasury and Cabinet Office, Julia was clear that the organisation will maintain the external engagement role of the current National Infrastructure Commission which is operationally independent. NISTA will be engaging with stakeholders and communities across the UK, and sharing intelligence from this process with decision makers as an interlocutor between the private sector and the Government on infrastructure policy development.
5. Regional planning and devolution mark the way forward for energy networks
On the energy transition, Julia was clear that NISTA will support a move to more regional planning of energy networks, away from ad hoc investments in transmission and distribution. The strategy will also align closely with the Government’s wider devolution agenda, looking to elected Mayor’s within combined authorities to deliver regional investment in infrastructure.
Your chance to engage with NISTA
We look forward to continuing this collaboration with the NIC and, from 1 April, NISTA, as Government policy on infrastructure takes shape, bringing the expert views of our members to address London’s key infrastructure challenges.
For more information on our infrastructure programme, including an upcoming briefing with the National Wealth Fund, or to find out about getting involved in the Infrastructure Group, please get in touch with John Kavanagh, Programme Director, Infrastructure.