Built Environment Committee
Tuesday 14th July 2026
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10:46
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
And welcome to the House of Lords Built Environment Committee. As everybody knows, we have been looking over the last 18 months or so into the subject of new towns, and our third module has been specifically around what we've called bricks and mortar. Some of the stumbling blocks to actually make these new towns happen. This is our final public session before the summer recess. We will return people pleased to know after the summer to conclude this inquiry. But today, effectively is not just the end of this module, but in effect, the end of our discussions on new towns.
And so what we're seeking to do is to bring the whole debate about this programme to a conclusion and to, to to raise some of the issues around delivering what we can, what we would term mega-projects or big project as, as, as new towns. And can it be done and should it be done in effect?And we're delighted to welcome two guests before us today to talk to us about that in the form of Doctor Brasier from the business school in Oxford, University of Oxford, and Professor Dingle, who is the Professor of Megaproject Management and the at UCL.
Welcome to both of you. I think you're aware we've got a series of questions around a horseshoe. The request I have of our witnesses and members alike is to just keep the questions and the answers as short as is possible. If there's any bits you don't feel you have anything to add or you want to write to us about, please do say so. But first, I think we're going to go to Baroness Janke.
And so what we're seeking to do is to bring the whole debate about this programme to a conclusion and to, to to raise some of the issues around delivering what we can, what we would term mega-projects or big project as, as, as new towns. And can it be done and should it be done in effect?And we're delighted to welcome two guests before us today to talk to us about that in the form of Doctor Brasier from the business school in Oxford, University of Oxford, and Professor Dingle, who is the Professor of Megaproject Management and the at UCL.
Welcome to both of you. I think you're aware we've got a series of questions around a horseshoe. The request I have of our witnesses and members alike is to just keep the questions and the answers as short as is possible. If there's any bits you don't feel you have anything to add or you want to write to us about, please do say so. But first, I think we're going to go to Baroness Janke.
10:47
10:48
10:48
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
All right. Cool. Um, it's all about the outcomes. So you know, it's not about the announcements. It is about towns that have an established population, lived in housing units and a functioning um, that is the successful outcomes. And it probably can only be judged in decades to come. You know, say Milton Keynes. When was that?50 years ago. So now we see a flourishing town, Ebbsfleet, not so much.
So I think what looks more of the what success should look like is more of Milton Keynes and Ebbsfleet. Mhm.
So I think what looks more of the what success should look like is more of Milton Keynes and Ebbsfleet. Mhm.
10:49
Speaker 4
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Speaker 4
I think you should be infrastructure first. Infrastructure led, systems led. Um, so we have a collection of, um, interdependent major projects to be delivered together. And it cannot be only housing. And there is a confusion in your previous reports as well in terms of the narrative as well. So is this housing or is it economic growth as well. And how do we square that vision and proposition?But people need to have a place.
So the placemaking perspective, it needs to be beyond, um housing, beyond assets. It needs to have an identity. It needs to have access to jobs. And there are collection of assets from transportation to hospitals and schools that need to be in place before you start the discussion with the private sector as well, in terms of unblocking the delivery aspects, but from the people living there, it needs to have an identity.
So the placemaking perspective, it needs to be beyond, um housing, beyond assets. It needs to have an identity. It needs to have access to jobs. And there are collection of assets from transportation to hospitals and schools that need to be in place before you start the discussion with the private sector as well, in terms of unblocking the delivery aspects, but from the people living there, it needs to have an identity.
10:50
10:50
Speaker 4
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Speaker 4
If we unpack some of the findings of your previous reports, it seems to be a consensus that development corporations are the way to go, and the delivery model for these things. But equally, it's missing a central body, a central government oversight to the delivery of the towns across the country. So if we are to unpack the concept of central oversight leadership, government leadership, several terms and expressions from previous reports, what does that look like?It's missing an entity. An agency that would be there for 50, 60 years and have cabinet level.
Um, oversight or a report and influence because you actually need to unpack and heard several sectors and money from different departments. And that's a systemic effort that I doubt the local development corporations will have the power to, to do so. So in terms of a governance structure, um, I think we need an entity that will be there for much longer and actually ensuring consistency and standardization. Mhm.
Um, oversight or a report and influence because you actually need to unpack and heard several sectors and money from different departments. And that's a systemic effort that I doubt the local development corporations will have the power to, to do so. So in terms of a governance structure, um, I think we need an entity that will be there for much longer and actually ensuring consistency and standardization. Mhm.
10:51
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Thank you. And that should also deal with the argument of speed, if you think about it. And what are the current choke points. So a lot of that is about local coordination consenting processes in the current powers. Local master plan doesn't automatically imply consent. If we're looking at successful development cooperation like the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, is that power was delegated or taken away from local authorities given to the Development corporation for a limited time, and therefore that choke point was taken away.
Um, and we see equally, you know, sort of where that isn't taken away. If you look at the Housing Innovation Fund, for instance, and how quickly they roll out projects or the schools building program, um, where, you know, sort of a central announcement, even local support of a scheme doesn't necessarily mean it gets built or built quickly. It's then held up in all sorts of coordination, consenting things and, you know, and, you know, even if you think about currently our system, um, and coming here, I thought as I look at some numbers and, you know, if you have a development consent order, the statutory limit is 15 to 18 months until it should be granted only.
I looked through the last 75 of these CEOs, only 40% of those ever achieved 18 months or less. So 60% of all DCO process take longer than that. Um, and that is already an expedited process. So I think that's a real choke point right at the beginning. And as Juliano said, you know, sort of with and without a system in place that we can actually deliver this some sort of capability. Um, you know, this will be announcements, this will be small enablement projects that lead to small developments but not reach the scale that's required.
Um, and we see equally, you know, sort of where that isn't taken away. If you look at the Housing Innovation Fund, for instance, and how quickly they roll out projects or the schools building program, um, where, you know, sort of a central announcement, even local support of a scheme doesn't necessarily mean it gets built or built quickly. It's then held up in all sorts of coordination, consenting things and, you know, and, you know, even if you think about currently our system, um, and coming here, I thought as I look at some numbers and, you know, if you have a development consent order, the statutory limit is 15 to 18 months until it should be granted only.
I looked through the last 75 of these CEOs, only 40% of those ever achieved 18 months or less. So 60% of all DCO process take longer than that. Um, and that is already an expedited process. So I think that's a real choke point right at the beginning. And as Juliano said, you know, sort of with and without a system in place that we can actually deliver this some sort of capability. Um, you know, this will be announcements, this will be small enablement projects that lead to small developments but not reach the scale that's required.
10:53
10:53
Speaker 4
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Speaker 4
The question is sequencing as well. Do we have the money. Can we afford. Where is the evidence for that. So we have a big vision, a big ambition. We had 40 new hospitals before. We had many different PowerPoint presentations. Where is the infrastructure delivery roadmap. Sequencing in each one of the towns?Can we afford all. Should we prioritize what is actually the plan to. Bring money in and attract the private sector investment as well.
10:54
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
And if you think about this in sort of building a new town with 10,000 units, the infrastructure alone and sort of public buildings like hospitals and schools is Giuliano mentioned, will be about 4 billion. Right. So we have the announcement, we have the announcements, we have the the bank under Homes England. Now. And but, you know, these are all numbers that have been announced but not actually committed. So there's a real difference there in terms of the commitment.
10:55
10:55
10:55
Speaker 5
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Speaker 5
Thank you. I was just going to say, on the ever decreasing list of what's up and running, do any of them look like they could be?A perfect new town. This is not this is not just an academic exercise, now, is it?We know where they're going to be, or at least we know the list that they might be from, even though it gets shorter on a monthly basis.
10:55
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
If you look back, I would say since sort of the sequencing was done in the wrong way, you know, sort of isn't the long list was announced first, then that was whittled down by government to the seven sites. Now finally, and environmental and delivery studies are done can actually be constructed on the site. Where are we allowed to construct on the site. And so that kind of sequencing was completely out of sync, right?In an ideal world, you would have done. An investigation survey for all the sites.
And then you land on one. And why is that?Because what already has happened is you get the whole thing around land uplift values, because as soon as you announce the 12 sites, everybody increases the options on the site and the money is gone, right?The sites are less viable. You get less public infrastructure. Sections 106.
And then you land on one. And why is that?Because what already has happened is you get the whole thing around land uplift values, because as soon as you announce the 12 sites, everybody increases the options on the site and the money is gone, right?The sites are less viable. You get less public infrastructure. Sections 106.
10:57
Speaker 5
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Speaker 5
We know the sequencing. We've complained about that. I don't know a year ago or whenever, two years ago, probably before they even started. But do any of the ones that are still left on the list, even though they might not be on it tomorrow?But of those, do any look like they could be?A perfect new town. Is it like one or all of them?Do they any of them look like?
10:57
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
I think the problem is fixable now, right?So then, so what is required is for each of those, you could make all of them successful. I believe. You know, if you sort of if it was me, I would first publish the funding model for that concurrently with the now arising environmental impact assessments, so that is not coming one after another, but do it in one package. Um, and, uh, the. There are safeguarding powers that could be used. Those are in, in the statutes to actually safeguard the land value now.
And, you know, create or sort of take away this whole value that just increases the cost of these projects rather than delivering something. So exercise these powers. Now be very clear. And this is the funding for them. And here is the Constructibility study. Here's the environmental impact assessment. And as Juliano said, creates somebody who's single accountable owner for the seven together, not just, you know, a collection random bag of seven projects.
And, you know, create or sort of take away this whole value that just increases the cost of these projects rather than delivering something. So exercise these powers. Now be very clear. And this is the funding for them. And here is the Constructibility study. Here's the environmental impact assessment. And as Juliano said, creates somebody who's single accountable owner for the seven together, not just, you know, a collection random bag of seven projects.
10:59
10:59
Speaker 4
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Speaker 4
Well to that. Point, I think you need more than people, individuals that are behind that. But what is the structural mechanism?The entity, the agency that will match the policy announcement and the ambition. So the ambition and nobody disagrees. We need the housing in 1.5 and so on. But how do you make that happen in a coordinated manner?So we can go back to multiple examples in different mega projects around the world. And this is the accountability of the client, right?So that's what we do in the mega project delivery centre at UCL.
We look at the client as one of the most important actors in the system, the guiding mind or the coordinating view. So who owns the whole mark?Wyatt made that point on Crossrail again on High Speed two and Mitchell on Tideway. We have many examples in the UK. Clem and the Olympics model as well. Oda, I'm sure you heard from Nick Smallwood and Sir John Armitt. So missing that agency, whatever that is, what capabilities that should have.
I don't think you will be successful.
We look at the client as one of the most important actors in the system, the guiding mind or the coordinating view. So who owns the whole mark?Wyatt made that point on Crossrail again on High Speed two and Mitchell on Tideway. We have many examples in the UK. Clem and the Olympics model as well. Oda, I'm sure you heard from Nick Smallwood and Sir John Armitt. So missing that agency, whatever that is, what capabilities that should have.
I don't think you will be successful.
11:00
11:01
11:01
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Single development corporation, Milton Keynes. I like Milton Keynes, you know. It might be. You might think it's funny with its little road layout and its house numbering system is a bit odd. But, you know, ultimately, I think most people who come from Milton Keynes and live there, it's it's a thriving town. So that's a definite success. And what did you have?You had the development corporation, you had the powers associated with it, and yet the funding associated with it.
And the most important thing, in order not to just create its own inflation bubble, like Giuliano mentioned, things like HS2, which just makes itself more and more expensive now. Milton Keynes. The land was assembled by the public purse, not by private developers, and it was assembled as then use value. They bought it at the prices of agricultural land. And we're taking the value uplift that came from it for making it. Development could borrow against that, put that into the infrastructure that needed to be built.
So it had a financing mechanism that basically was financed from, here's the agricultural use land, here's the future use land. We borrow against that gap and put that gap into the financing of the infrastructure. That was a very successful model and.
And the most important thing, in order not to just create its own inflation bubble, like Giuliano mentioned, things like HS2, which just makes itself more and more expensive now. Milton Keynes. The land was assembled by the public purse, not by private developers, and it was assembled as then use value. They bought it at the prices of agricultural land. And we're taking the value uplift that came from it for making it. Development could borrow against that, put that into the infrastructure that needed to be built.
So it had a financing mechanism that basically was financed from, here's the agricultural use land, here's the future use land. We borrow against that gap and put that gap into the financing of the infrastructure. That was a very successful model and.
11:03
11:03
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Um, I think there's nothing that we couldn't, uh, we couldn't sort out, um, give the corporations or development corporations give those, those similar powers and find a similar financing arrangement. And that means stopping any land value speculations now because those powers exist, government could do that. And sort of the whole value kind of debate. Um, and recycle that into paying for the infrastructure that's needed to enable the sites and sort of lay the fabric of foundation, um, to. For future successful towns.
11:03
Speaker 4
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Speaker 4
Without the consideration of speed, I think the landscape that you had in the post war was significantly different in terms of planning and consent than what we have now. If you look at Hinkley Point C, they developed probably around 10,000 pages to get permission to build Sizewell C. Seven, eight times more with supplementary documentation, 80,000 in a space of how many years. So you have, um, a working group at the OECD. There is a new network and infrastructure at the OECD, which is the first new network created by the OECD.
It seems in 17 years in infrastructure delivery. Um recognising the challenge that multiple countries are facing, but then it brings the question on how do you have accountability for these things. Who owns the model and how do we learn from planning and the expansion of requirements. And that takes time. So once you are addressing all the pillars that you have, you start again because the regulations changed. So how fast do we want the cities to be there?We have a housing crisis and what are we willing to do?And there will be trade offs.
We need to be honest about the trade offs. What are we willing to do to have economic growth housing. Ready for people. Without damaging the environment. But there must be another way and trade offs are needed. Otherwise you will take. As long as it's taking to build major projects. And we have plenty of examples.
It seems in 17 years in infrastructure delivery. Um recognising the challenge that multiple countries are facing, but then it brings the question on how do you have accountability for these things. Who owns the model and how do we learn from planning and the expansion of requirements. And that takes time. So once you are addressing all the pillars that you have, you start again because the regulations changed. So how fast do we want the cities to be there?We have a housing crisis and what are we willing to do?And there will be trade offs.
We need to be honest about the trade offs. What are we willing to do to have economic growth housing. Ready for people. Without damaging the environment. But there must be another way and trade offs are needed. Otherwise you will take. As long as it's taking to build major projects. And we have plenty of examples.
11:05
11:05
Speaker 6
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Speaker 6
Good morning gentlemen. I'm sorry not to be with you in person. And this is a pretty blunt question in relation to everything you said so far. Do you think this is worth it?I mean, essentially the since we have failed to project the sort of imperative that they did in 1945, or the central funding or a plan, as you call it, for sequencing, and we've done things in the wrong order, and yet we are lumbered with a big political image of new towns.
Would it not be better at this point to say, right, we're just going to build a few additional settlements in key growth areas?Or is that now too late and too expensive politically, do you think?
Would it not be better at this point to say, right, we're just going to build a few additional settlements in key growth areas?Or is that now too late and too expensive politically, do you think?
11:06
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
I honestly think you wouldn't make up the numbers. Private sector developers would easily build like infill projects. Maybe densification projects in urban areas, because there's clear profits to be had. Now that is something the market can sort out. If a shortage, you know, has the appropriate rents and prices for housing or other real estate. I think the role of government will be, uh, you know, or the key role of government is not in those kind of projects. But the key role in government is about should we build, can we build these new towns?And with the need that is there, we're not going to make up the numbers.
And we know also, you know, it's not this committee, but other parts of this building talk about social cohesion and other things. And if we only look at places, for instance, like Hong Kong, where lack of housing led to unrest, sort of this whole thing about us. And that once you get two generations who'd never have an opportunity or even a faint hope of owning a property or even renting on their own, um, that is, uh, as more negative consequences than just high rent and high cost of living in the long run.
And we know also, you know, it's not this committee, but other parts of this building talk about social cohesion and other things. And if we only look at places, for instance, like Hong Kong, where lack of housing led to unrest, sort of this whole thing about us. And that once you get two generations who'd never have an opportunity or even a faint hope of owning a property or even renting on their own, um, that is, uh, as more negative consequences than just high rent and high cost of living in the long run.
11:07
11:07
Speaker 4
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Speaker 4
Yes, I would agree. Um, it needs to be a national endeavour. Um but you need to have the capabilities and the resources to do so and match the ambition. And that requires um capability building and long term investment in institutional structures because it needs to be led by the government. If going back to your question, we need as many cities as announced. Um, we don't know the sequencing. We don't know the cost. We don't know how long they will take.
An answer could be perhaps informed, um, into that question. I would like to see perhaps analysis. And where is the data. Um to, to back seven or not. Three. If you ask, um should we prioritize the ones where we have infrastructure. Um ongoing. So maybe along the lines of east west rail, which is already um, progressing and that takes years, but if you have to build infrastructure, how many years are you taking to build the infrastructure first so that you can attract the private sector as well for housing?Um, there is potentially an investigation in terms of which ones would have more infrastructure and you could deliver the housing because infrastructure needs to be there first.
There is no way around it.
An answer could be perhaps informed, um, into that question. I would like to see perhaps analysis. And where is the data. Um to, to back seven or not. Three. If you ask, um should we prioritize the ones where we have infrastructure. Um ongoing. So maybe along the lines of east west rail, which is already um, progressing and that takes years, but if you have to build infrastructure, how many years are you taking to build the infrastructure first so that you can attract the private sector as well for housing?Um, there is potentially an investigation in terms of which ones would have more infrastructure and you could deliver the housing because infrastructure needs to be there first.
There is no way around it.
11:09
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
So, so say yeah, in addition to those kind of arcs and corridors that have been designated right leads, uh, Southbank or Manchester, Victoria, North, which have already in place at existing infrastructure, those kind of things where a new town, you know, would already tap into things at speed without the long development timeline that is usually required if you have to put in all that infrastructure, create the jobs, build the transportation, schools and hospitals that are needed. Um, yeah.
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11:10
Speaker 4
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Speaker 4
Be your job on a Tuesday morning. You need dedicated capability and organization. It's not a team of people. You need to establish an entity that will manage the portfolio and find synergies across all the towns that you have, and deal with the supply chains and the markets. The savings to be made in terms of managing this as a portfolio and having a strategy together across the country. But for that, you need an agency with the right seniority and people who can go around multiple departments in government and bring the right people to talk about schools, hospitals, transport, water, utilities, grid, EV, climate change, resilience, multiple sectors that you need to address without the seniority, this will not happen.
But then another question is how do you actually set up that organization?Do we have a methodology to actually identify the capabilities of that organization, what they should be doing?How big should they be?One of the big lessons from recent mega projects is that we are tasking clients or delivery bodies or, or contracting authorities with a massive task, and they don't have the people to deliver. There are thresholds on on what you can hire, how much you can pay, and they are managing and essentially outsourcing, um, to consultants and paying ten times more instead of hiring people in-house and doing that.
So there must be a sensible conversation on, yes, we need a central body. What should they do?What are the capabilities and how do you build that?How do you stabilize a credible long term organization for 50, 60 years?And how do you capture the learning from that so that you don't start all over again?
But then another question is how do you actually set up that organization?Do we have a methodology to actually identify the capabilities of that organization, what they should be doing?How big should they be?One of the big lessons from recent mega projects is that we are tasking clients or delivery bodies or, or contracting authorities with a massive task, and they don't have the people to deliver. There are thresholds on on what you can hire, how much you can pay, and they are managing and essentially outsourcing, um, to consultants and paying ten times more instead of hiring people in-house and doing that.
So there must be a sensible conversation on, yes, we need a central body. What should they do?What are the capabilities and how do you build that?How do you stabilize a credible long term organization for 50, 60 years?And how do you capture the learning from that so that you don't start all over again?
11:11
11:11
Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
Okay. Good morning gentlemen. The government stressed that they wanted to have an exemplary, um, development, um, to be the norm and not the exception that the um for the new generation, for the new generation of towns, it must be well connected, well designed, sustainable, attractive places where people want to live and to have the infrastructure, the amenities, the services, the necessary to sustain a thriving community. So my question is. How will England, where the new towns program will be successful, that will be successfully delivered, differ from the England where this is um this has not happened.
11:12
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11:12
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Aspirations that were the opposite of those are clearly untrue. You know, nobody wants to build new housing that is substandard, that doesn't have transport links and so on. So it's slightly an interesting, uh, interesting objective, uh, that I think everybody would automatically agree with because the opposite is completely nonsensical. But what would really be different?And I think what really would be different if this comes to fruition is that the UK has a system in place, a capability in place that can build stuff.
And that will really be the differentiator. So on the one hand, if we achieve these outcomes, there's only achievable if we have, as Julian also said, that kind of system in place, that production system in place that makes this happen. Um, rather than thinking about these as small little interventions, um, that hopefully will come together, um, through whatever forces without any coordination.
And that will really be the differentiator. So on the one hand, if we achieve these outcomes, there's only achievable if we have, as Julian also said, that kind of system in place, that production system in place that makes this happen. Um, rather than thinking about these as small little interventions, um, that hopefully will come together, um, through whatever forces without any coordination.
11:13
Speaker 4
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Speaker 4
We also touched on outcomes and benefits. And as a systems led approach, we would have the outcomes if this was successfully delivered and there would be, other cities and towns with and settlements with an identity, with character, with people living there and belonging with access to jobs and. That would bring the benefits that we are aspiring as a society. Um, we need to talk about the public data that we don't have to look at the benefits of investments. And that's something that Mr..
Um, could be potentially building up. Um, so there is a very interesting, um, initiative that was developed by the IPA under Nick Smallwood's leadership called the benchmarking Data Service. And that if that is properly invested in that would capture the benchmarking and costs and benefits of major projects, um, in the UK and systematically. So if we want to have that vision on the outcomes that we want as a society, can we have the data to argue that having a systems approach will unlock value to society?Where is the evidence for that?We don't have the data.
We don't track benefits systematically. So if you were to have at Mr. level a place that. And that's the perfect, um, structural mechanism or agency to have that engage with all government departments, mandate the data that you want on cost and benefits, collect back and build the capability, invest ten, 20 million, which is peanuts comparing to a £725 billion infrastructure. We pay their own consultants over ten years. Right?So if you build that team and the monitoring and capability that you will have, you will be able to have a sensible conversation about systemic outcomes and what we want to society at the moment, we don't have data on benefits.
We talk about outcomes. There.
Um, could be potentially building up. Um, so there is a very interesting, um, initiative that was developed by the IPA under Nick Smallwood's leadership called the benchmarking Data Service. And that if that is properly invested in that would capture the benchmarking and costs and benefits of major projects, um, in the UK and systematically. So if we want to have that vision on the outcomes that we want as a society, can we have the data to argue that having a systems approach will unlock value to society?Where is the evidence for that?We don't have the data.
We don't track benefits systematically. So if you were to have at Mr. level a place that. And that's the perfect, um, structural mechanism or agency to have that engage with all government departments, mandate the data that you want on cost and benefits, collect back and build the capability, invest ten, 20 million, which is peanuts comparing to a £725 billion infrastructure. We pay their own consultants over ten years. Right?So if you build that team and the monitoring and capability that you will have, you will be able to have a sensible conversation about systemic outcomes and what we want to society at the moment, we don't have data on benefits.
We talk about outcomes. There.
11:15
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11:16
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Which then also begs the question if this is clearly not, is this already lagging behind?Right. Uh, targets won't be met by the end of the parliamentary period. So where's the system that carries this forward for the next ten years?The next 15 years?That isn't, you know, where. Sort of a single minister's support for this or single party support for this national issue is required to keep it going. Right.
11:17
Speaker 8
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Speaker 8
Trouble goes back to what you said about somebody owning the new towns. Nobody in government owns the 1.5 million target. It's the Treasury don't own it. And if the Treasury don't own it, it don't get done. I love MH clg. I think they're full of great people, but they are so far down the pecking order about who's important, it ain't going to get done. And the government have committed £39 billion. Sounds like a good.
But committing it and spending it are two different things. And there isn't anybody who pushes it.
But committing it and spending it are two different things. And there isn't anybody who pushes it.
11:18
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11:18
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Yeah. The constantly underspend. So they can't get the money out of the door fast enough because the market capability isn't ready. But at the same time isn't there is not that sort of the execution arm, once everything is in place, all consenting is in place. These are the people that can execute, actually. But there is no equivalent for policy work that can evolve the planning system. There is no simple thing to coordinate and organize the planning.
So all the upfront kind of things doesn't have a natural owner. Across government. We have a thing that can execute, but there's nobody to hold together. The planning, the front end and the the necessary policy changes to make this happen.
So all the upfront kind of things doesn't have a natural owner. Across government. We have a thing that can execute, but there's nobody to hold together. The planning, the front end and the the necessary policy changes to make this happen.
11:19
11:19
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11:19
Speaker 4
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Speaker 4
Um, would we classify as a success 1.5 million homes delivered and no infrastructure, no placemaking?Sense of identity. So this goes back to the narrative that we are building. Is this a house, a housing effort, or are we also talking about economic growth and be serious about what needs to be done before?What is the equivalent of 1.5 million homes to the infrastructure that's needed?We have clarity on that. I don't think so yet.
11:20
11:20
11:20
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
So it's a kind of a sequencing issue right. If you look at Ebbsfleet where housing was built first and infrastructure jobs came second and need to be shoehorned in or Northstowe same story, right?So you get sort of things that are not seen as successes. So it's a sequencing point. You need to build that infrastructure first.
11:21
11:21
11:21
11:21
11:21
11:22
Speaker 4
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Speaker 4
Um, and I would encourage the committee to hear from Nick Smallwood on this matter because he was, um, the guiding force behind the, um, benchmarking data service at the IPA, which now sits at Nesta. We, if we are talking about creating multiple portfolios of projects in government to unlock outcomes and societal benefits and all the, the nice and needed things that we want as a society, and we don't have a way of systematically tracking that. Um, we constantly keep talking about costs. Um, there is a debate whether we talk about costs and we understand what we are delivering.
What is the scope changing over 20 years and, and what has built assets we have and how much we're paying for that. So understanding if we are on budget under or over, it might be that we start with ten stations, but we added so much more value and assets over several, um, electoral cycles in that mega project that we are delivering the scope that is much higher. And therefore, if you judge against the initial forecast, it might not be true that you are over budget because you're delivering more items, more scope.
We don't have that visibility. We tend to capture data before investment decision and project conclusion. We don't seem to capture the scope, evolution or who asks for scope changes. Where is this coming from?Is it coming from the sponsors?Different government departments, politicians?And how does that affect delivery agencies?Um, arms length bodies?If we were to have that granularity at Nesta level across different categories of projects on the GMP associated with the benefits, if you ask me, 20 million for that.
I'm not sure if that's the cost, but just assuming how much is 20 million as an investment for that?If you have a pipeline of 725 billion 0.002. Percent. This is a no brainer. And there are serious questions why this is not being done before, but this would be a game changer.
What is the scope changing over 20 years and, and what has built assets we have and how much we're paying for that. So understanding if we are on budget under or over, it might be that we start with ten stations, but we added so much more value and assets over several, um, electoral cycles in that mega project that we are delivering the scope that is much higher. And therefore, if you judge against the initial forecast, it might not be true that you are over budget because you're delivering more items, more scope.
We don't have that visibility. We tend to capture data before investment decision and project conclusion. We don't seem to capture the scope, evolution or who asks for scope changes. Where is this coming from?Is it coming from the sponsors?Different government departments, politicians?And how does that affect delivery agencies?Um, arms length bodies?If we were to have that granularity at Nesta level across different categories of projects on the GMP associated with the benefits, if you ask me, 20 million for that.
I'm not sure if that's the cost, but just assuming how much is 20 million as an investment for that?If you have a pipeline of 725 billion 0.002. Percent. This is a no brainer. And there are serious questions why this is not being done before, but this would be a game changer.
11:24
11:24
Speaker 4
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Speaker 4
Invest, dedicate the money which is cheap compared to the benefits that you will get across the country. And frankly, it will change the whole planet because other governments across the world and the OECD will follow, and you will have a much more informed discussion about cost and benefits of major infrastructure projects and other assets as well. But it needs to be there as a team, properly funded, with the analytic capability to do so and provide you or the parts of society with the data and the evidence.
11:25
11:25
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Just going to very quickly add that, you know, what you were saying in terms of impact studies that then also close the loop again to policy making and informing future policy, right. You know, we have other parts of government, you know, the Fcdo does a lot of great post implementation work. They are tracking whether certain foreign aid interventions have changed the host country, whether an intervention was done for some odd reason we don't do that domestically.
11:25
Speaker 9
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Speaker 9
Thank you. So the cross departmental message is coming across loud and clear and actually see what it is that we've got. Um, I was very pleased to hear you talking about sense of place, quality of life, health outcomes, cultural identity, which is key, and climate resilience and climate change. It's not just about houses, it's actually about homes and quality of life for all of the people in that town. Um, so what mistakes, if any, do you think the government has made so far in the announcement planning and early delivery of the new towns programme?You've actually touched on this quite a lot already.
What would you have done differently if there have been errors?What can the government do to correct course quickly?And we would also be written if not now, um written. We will now also be very interested, if not today in written evidence about where you think there are international examples of good practice where we have got this more right. Thank you.
What would you have done differently if there have been errors?What can the government do to correct course quickly?And we would also be written if not now, um written. We will now also be very interested, if not today in written evidence about where you think there are international examples of good practice where we have got this more right. Thank you.
11:26
Speaker 4
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Speaker 4
I would start with the vision we touched on that, um housing versus economic growth. The next down would be delivery model. Um, where is the funding coming from and the sequencing of that, uh, clarity on deliverability. So each one of the sites, what is the roadmap and the path to get infrastructure built?And, and the systems led approach that will create the outcomes that we're talking about at the placemaking and the identity and the cultural belonging. Governance would be my number one.
Priority. It is a problem of governance. So we don't have the system to governance. The towns programme, you don't have a central agency coordinating a portfolio. You don't even know the capabilities of the local level. There is a need for an assessment if we want to delegate more, and I'm in favour of that to to local um corporations and entities dealing with the place and they will know much better. But without the central oversight and the strong guiding mind from government unblocking the issues that you will have and the trade offs and the different agendas from different departments and agencies.
You will get nowhere. So governance needs to be sorted first in order to get things going. And that's not there. There is a lack of clarity. I think it was reflected in one of your previous points as well. Um, as a debate of the report. And you highlighted governance as one of the main and sort of get a grip on this. So how do you control. What's going on?So if we start seven different projects and in ten years we have the same conversation and you decide to ask, why are you not controlling that?Who would have the visibility?Where would the data sit to have control of the seven?Without that central agency, you don't have it.
Priority. It is a problem of governance. So we don't have the system to governance. The towns programme, you don't have a central agency coordinating a portfolio. You don't even know the capabilities of the local level. There is a need for an assessment if we want to delegate more, and I'm in favour of that to to local um corporations and entities dealing with the place and they will know much better. But without the central oversight and the strong guiding mind from government unblocking the issues that you will have and the trade offs and the different agendas from different departments and agencies.
You will get nowhere. So governance needs to be sorted first in order to get things going. And that's not there. There is a lack of clarity. I think it was reflected in one of your previous points as well. Um, as a debate of the report. And you highlighted governance as one of the main and sort of get a grip on this. So how do you control. What's going on?So if we start seven different projects and in ten years we have the same conversation and you decide to ask, why are you not controlling that?Who would have the visibility?Where would the data sit to have control of the seven?Without that central agency, you don't have it.
11:29
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Yeah. So I would yeah. Same same very similar answer. There's not a single case study that has done it well that you could directly copy, but you can take different things from different from different elements. So, you know, so particular what happens with the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and Development Corporation, Milton Keynes. That is a good idea, a blueprint for governance, particularly around the powers that are needed at the local corporation level. If you look internationally, sort of from what happens in Paris at Rive Gauche or Hamburg, at the Harbour City or Copenhagen, those are really good cases for financing mechanisms.
So how can you finance the infrastructure need against that?So how can we, uh. Uh, deal better with the land value capture that some of that comes back to the public purse and finances infrastructure, rather than just getting handed over to private developers. Uh, and then we can definitely learn sort of how to sequence things. Infrastructure first, systems building first, housing later. You know, we've seen Ebbsfleet in Northstowe where that has sort of struggled, but also Bundang in Korea is a good case for that, where it also has struggled.
And when we're thinking about systems, there is a particular sort of the Dutch system, but also the German planning system are really good blueprints. And you also have the one in Stockholm. So if we're thinking about building that system of delivering this over and over again, um, I think those are good case studies. I'm happy to write that all up and submit it afterwards.
So how can you finance the infrastructure need against that?So how can we, uh. Uh, deal better with the land value capture that some of that comes back to the public purse and finances infrastructure, rather than just getting handed over to private developers. Uh, and then we can definitely learn sort of how to sequence things. Infrastructure first, systems building first, housing later. You know, we've seen Ebbsfleet in Northstowe where that has sort of struggled, but also Bundang in Korea is a good case for that, where it also has struggled.
And when we're thinking about systems, there is a particular sort of the Dutch system, but also the German planning system are really good blueprints. And you also have the one in Stockholm. So if we're thinking about building that system of delivering this over and over again, um, I think those are good case studies. I'm happy to write that all up and submit it afterwards.
11:31
11:31
11:31
Speaker 10
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Speaker 10
Thanks very much indeed. I suddenly remembered as I was listening to you both in the when I was a minister in the previous government, there was a infrastructure training day for ministers, and it never happened. I must have signed up about five times, but there was never enough demand. Um, so maybe that is a metaphor for what's going on. Um, but turning to my question, um, I just if we think about the long term nature of, um, new. Town and the wider infrastructure that you've articulated so clearly, it would be helpful to understand what you think needs to be in place to make sure that you can keep the momentum and the buy in of the local community of the political class of the.
Um, or companies that are providing, um, the work over that long term cycle. And I'm reminded of that phrase about show me the incentives and I'll show you the behaviour. What are the incentives that we need to put in place to sustain that kind of engagement over time?
Um, or companies that are providing, um, the work over that long term cycle. And I'm reminded of that phrase about show me the incentives and I'll show you the behaviour. What are the incentives that we need to put in place to sustain that kind of engagement over time?
11:32
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
I think, you know, they always say it's not, uh, 15% of the local population who are against the project can stop something in its tracks against governments will. And so, but equally, it also means if a small group of local citizens are really behind the project, buying into the project, then sort of that provides that grassroots support. Uh, if that is established at the local level. Um, I don't think there is an element, uh, I think that's kind of required, right?Sort of don't do it on them.
Do it with them. Make people part of that process of identifying what is the vision, what's the place they want to live in in future generations, and then put that in place and, uh, talking to people from, East London who said, you know, one important thing was ring fenced, multiyear funding, decade long funding. Um, but also the powers that took it out of whatever political wrangling happened between Newham and, uh, its neighbours, uh, you know, so if this then powers there and in hindsight, when I spoke to these people and interviewed them for the research was saying, you know, we had planning powers for 15 years, you know, ideally we should have had it for 40 because these things are slowly building, because you're not creating the whole new town from scratch in one day.
You know, these things slowly start to build. You start with some core infrastructure first, you know, now if you look at East London, you get universities, museums, the BBC out there, arts, more office space, uh, work and so on. And that all grew out of basically a shopping centre, a bunch of offices in the beginning and some housing, you know, sort of it is that kind of. You know, you don't build a city in a day. Uh, and therefore it needs that kind of protection funding wise as well as politically, um, for quite, for quite a while.
Do it with them. Make people part of that process of identifying what is the vision, what's the place they want to live in in future generations, and then put that in place and, uh, talking to people from, East London who said, you know, one important thing was ring fenced, multiyear funding, decade long funding. Um, but also the powers that took it out of whatever political wrangling happened between Newham and, uh, its neighbours, uh, you know, so if this then powers there and in hindsight, when I spoke to these people and interviewed them for the research was saying, you know, we had planning powers for 15 years, you know, ideally we should have had it for 40 because these things are slowly building, because you're not creating the whole new town from scratch in one day.
You know, these things slowly start to build. You start with some core infrastructure first, you know, now if you look at East London, you get universities, museums, the BBC out there, arts, more office space, uh, work and so on. And that all grew out of basically a shopping centre, a bunch of offices in the beginning and some housing, you know, sort of it is that kind of. You know, you don't build a city in a day. Uh, and therefore it needs that kind of protection funding wise as well as politically, um, for quite, for quite a while.
11:33
Speaker 4
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Speaker 4
I agree with the engagement with, with the people affected and the ones living there, but, um, I would highlight the changes in government and the different genders of whoever is coming in after 4 or 5 years, or even less than that. So the key question, so we did a. The biggest. Review of megaproject performance, um, ever published with more than 6000 papers considered in 2020, we published that it was a piece of work commissioned by PMI Project Management Institute. And one of the big findings on the causes of poor performance in mega is this political stability or the stability of organizations.
When you have different political cycles. So the key question, perhaps going back to governance, but I think it's broader than that, going to your incentives and mechanisms. We know different governments will come in and they will want different things, and they will change policies and scope. If you have a 5060 year endeavor, these are all given conditions and structural elements. How do you protect what you want to make a decision and move on and deliver it?Instead of reassessing and start stop?And we saw that movie several fronts.
What are the mechanisms necessary to avoid changing to a completely different scope or vision in ten years time?Um, that would be a disaster. So if I could make the point of the benefits, if you have a systematic data set in the public domain with the legitimacy of something, someone like Nesta saying. Benefits that we agreed, we are delivering the benefits. Here is the evidence. It's in the public domain. It's clear. Why are you changing this?So whoever is supposing to come up with different ideas will need to.
Justify what are the extra benefits that you are suggesting to be delivered and what is the plan?But at the moment we are arguing without the data, we're flying blind and whoever comes in can make whatever policy announcements, and you don't have anything to counter.
When you have different political cycles. So the key question, perhaps going back to governance, but I think it's broader than that, going to your incentives and mechanisms. We know different governments will come in and they will want different things, and they will change policies and scope. If you have a 5060 year endeavor, these are all given conditions and structural elements. How do you protect what you want to make a decision and move on and deliver it?Instead of reassessing and start stop?And we saw that movie several fronts.
What are the mechanisms necessary to avoid changing to a completely different scope or vision in ten years time?Um, that would be a disaster. So if I could make the point of the benefits, if you have a systematic data set in the public domain with the legitimacy of something, someone like Nesta saying. Benefits that we agreed, we are delivering the benefits. Here is the evidence. It's in the public domain. It's clear. Why are you changing this?So whoever is supposing to come up with different ideas will need to.
Justify what are the extra benefits that you are suggesting to be delivered and what is the plan?But at the moment we are arguing without the data, we're flying blind and whoever comes in can make whatever policy announcements, and you don't have anything to counter.
11:35
11:35
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
And then and then you get the same problem. As you said, it's in the incentives, right?Because now you get the hope value. There has been no government has given none direction, which way it will land about disallowing or not disallowing it. Um, and therefore you get the speculation on the land value, which means it drives prices up. And what was initially planned at, say, agricultural use land or brownfield land has already risen in cost. And then you end up with that incentive scheme at the moment where costs are rising, a private developer would come in, would then argue the scheme is no longer viable, will edge out social affordable housing, will edge out some of the social infrastructure that originally was planned to build.
And we're ending up with these kind of substandard developments that we see everywhere. And that's kind of the thing about, you know, how can we put that system in place that can also break this kind of game from being played all the time?
And we're ending up with these kind of substandard developments that we see everywhere. And that's kind of the thing about, you know, how can we put that system in place that can also break this kind of game from being played all the time?
11:36
Speaker 10
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Speaker 10
Thank you. And you mentioned in your earlier comments that we need to go from 10 to 40 year funding. And that's like a whole discussion in itself. But is there anything structural that one could change in the kind of type of finance that's available in the UK, which would drive the kind of behaviours that we want to see?
11:37
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
The National Housing Bank just had to look up the name. Again. Uh, they at the moment give out loans for 15 years, which is rather short of the floor rather than the ceiling of the kind of funding that's involved. So I think that's definitely a step in the right direction. On the other hand, I mean, there is not, you know, numbers are bandied around, but no firm commitment has been made on how this programme, what how much of this programme will be funded and how it will be repaid.
So that kind of like, um you know, I think I mentioned it earlier in, if we had to fix this or fixing it, make clear the funding mechanism now, because there's no clarity around this. At the same time where constructability and environmental impacts are assessed and publicised. And then, um, let's get on with it.
So that kind of like, um you know, I think I mentioned it earlier in, if we had to fix this or fixing it, make clear the funding mechanism now, because there's no clarity around this. At the same time where constructability and environmental impacts are assessed and publicised. And then, um, let's get on with it.
11:37
11:38
11:38
Speaker 8
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Speaker 8
Just those comments reflect on urban extension. They don't reflect on New Town, do they?Because like a new town by its nature has no community to talk to. So you can't bring a community with you. I grew up in Stevenage, I loved it, but if you ask any of the 10,000 people who lived in Stevenage, did they want Stevenage?New Town stuck as an adjunct to it?They would have all said no. So the government quite rightly said, we've got a bunch of people out of east London, we're moving out and they need to go somewhere.
It's called Stevenage, whether you like it or not. So sometimes you have to do it to people regardless of what they want. Urban extension is a different matter because you've got a community you can consult with and work with, hopefully to convince it's the right thing, because that's where their kids will move to. But a new town proper isn't.
It's called Stevenage, whether you like it or not. So sometimes you have to do it to people regardless of what they want. Urban extension is a different matter because you've got a community you can consult with and work with, hopefully to convince it's the right thing, because that's where their kids will move to. But a new town proper isn't.
11:39
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
And, and the other thing I think what's what's even the recent reforms to the planning bill and so on didn't address is you might have a master plan, you might have a local plan, but it's not legally binding. If you look at the Netherlands of Germany, those are legally binding and basically consent for a scheme that falls under the master plan is automatically granted, it is an administrative process. Now you might have a local development plan and say, let's do a Stevenage that looks like this. And then suddenly every single scheme in there the hospital, the train station, the bus stops, all of that goes through a local consenting process.
And then you get a lot of people saying, well, but that's kind of the field where I like to walk my dog. I don't like a train station there, you know, and then you end up with these things. So in other countries, if you have a master plan, regional local plan, make that automatically consented. And if the scheme conforms to whatever planning conditions are attached to that, right. It is an administrative procedure. It doesn't require the local participation in the consenting process.
It doesn't require another committee. It doesn't require another debate whether this bit should now be there. And let's have debates when the plan needs to change, but not about the individual projects that could be pre-approved.
And then you get a lot of people saying, well, but that's kind of the field where I like to walk my dog. I don't like a train station there, you know, and then you end up with these things. So in other countries, if you have a master plan, regional local plan, make that automatically consented. And if the scheme conforms to whatever planning conditions are attached to that, right. It is an administrative procedure. It doesn't require the local participation in the consenting process.
It doesn't require another committee. It doesn't require another debate whether this bit should now be there. And let's have debates when the plan needs to change, but not about the individual projects that could be pre-approved.
11:40
11:40
11:40
Speaker 11
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Speaker 11
So my question is about mega projects, and we all know that in the UK the government has or successive governments have really struggled with delivery, with getting stuff built, with getting large infrastructure built in the UK. Whether you look at I think Giuliano, you mentioned the example of of Hinckley earlier. I actually work in the nuclear industry. So that's resonates resonates with me. Um, but I'd, I'd be interested in your, your thoughts on really what is the most significant reason that governments have struggled to deliver these kinds of projects and how.
Really, how might some of these barriers be overcome for the new towns programme?Do you want to start.
Really, how might some of these barriers be overcome for the new towns programme?Do you want to start.
11:41
Speaker 4
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Speaker 4
Um. I'll go back to this study that we published in 2020, which is now one of the most cited papers in the history of PMI Scientific Journal, which is project management journal. Um, the brief that we received from PMI, which is a professional association with almost a million members globally, was essentially to systematically develop a methodology to systematically capture the problems and solutions. I can share the papers and the findings later on, but I will highlight one out of the six themes that we found.
Right. We found six themes. 18 main causes and 54 solutions. And we made a deliberate decision to have three times more solutions than problems, because all out of the 6000 papers that we reviewed, it was very pessimist. Nobody was offering a solution. So this is one of the reasons why the paper exploded in the media and so on. Um, strategy, governance and procurement. And that goes to my one of the themes, and it goes to my point of connecting the delivery model with the structural elements of the system to actually be the client and set the rules of the game.
So if we don't have that connected with procurement and the appropriate management of the market and the supply chain later, it's not going to happen. Um, if we unpack this question of strategic governance and procurement, we touched on the political cycles, and I'm not going to repeat that. But political interference and the. Policy delivery gap is one of the main causes of failure. And I'll give you a few examples. So imagine, um, something like Crossrail Limited or HS2 limited.
So the delivery body, an arm's length body, they have world class capability. So the people working there and I dispute the comment that people are incompetent. So we have a talented world class industry of major project professionals in this country. And they go all over the world. So it's a systemic structural problem. So if you take people working in bodies, they have delivery expertise. And then you have to deal with the institutional system. The sponsors and government departments and, and different politicians coming every five years.
What happens when there is a request to change the scope or to add another item in the ongoing project?There might be an analysis out of the delivery agency and they will say this is not deliverable. We will cost you a fortune. And you might have top down decision making saying just do it anyway. If the. Now was to do an ex post review and find who asked for scope changes. Where is that registered?Can we actually track down where the scope changed and the impact that we had on cost?So a clear recommendation would be a governance mechanism that once we decided and we consult extensively, we do all the stakeholder engagement and environmental considerations.
That's not up for debate. But once you made the decision and you have a hybrid bill in place, you cannot have 8000 consents. Needed after a hybrid bill, you need to get on and deliver the job. So there must be a change in the structure if we are to deliver. Projects at the speed, the pace that we need. So political interference and track. There might be good reasons for changing the scope and adding more value, but that needs to be transparent.
So scope changes main cause for.
Right. We found six themes. 18 main causes and 54 solutions. And we made a deliberate decision to have three times more solutions than problems, because all out of the 6000 papers that we reviewed, it was very pessimist. Nobody was offering a solution. So this is one of the reasons why the paper exploded in the media and so on. Um, strategy, governance and procurement. And that goes to my one of the themes, and it goes to my point of connecting the delivery model with the structural elements of the system to actually be the client and set the rules of the game.
So if we don't have that connected with procurement and the appropriate management of the market and the supply chain later, it's not going to happen. Um, if we unpack this question of strategic governance and procurement, we touched on the political cycles, and I'm not going to repeat that. But political interference and the. Policy delivery gap is one of the main causes of failure. And I'll give you a few examples. So imagine, um, something like Crossrail Limited or HS2 limited.
So the delivery body, an arm's length body, they have world class capability. So the people working there and I dispute the comment that people are incompetent. So we have a talented world class industry of major project professionals in this country. And they go all over the world. So it's a systemic structural problem. So if you take people working in bodies, they have delivery expertise. And then you have to deal with the institutional system. The sponsors and government departments and, and different politicians coming every five years.
What happens when there is a request to change the scope or to add another item in the ongoing project?There might be an analysis out of the delivery agency and they will say this is not deliverable. We will cost you a fortune. And you might have top down decision making saying just do it anyway. If the. Now was to do an ex post review and find who asked for scope changes. Where is that registered?Can we actually track down where the scope changed and the impact that we had on cost?So a clear recommendation would be a governance mechanism that once we decided and we consult extensively, we do all the stakeholder engagement and environmental considerations.
That's not up for debate. But once you made the decision and you have a hybrid bill in place, you cannot have 8000 consents. Needed after a hybrid bill, you need to get on and deliver the job. So there must be a change in the structure if we are to deliver. Projects at the speed, the pace that we need. So political interference and track. There might be good reasons for changing the scope and adding more value, but that needs to be transparent.
So scope changes main cause for.
11:45
Speaker 11
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Speaker 11
Me what about the. What about the planning and regulatory system itself?And I think you mentioned earlier, the, the, the ten, 20,000 pages of the Hinkley consent and the 40 odd thousand pages of the Sizewell consent. As an example, you've got this sort of piling up of environmental regulations. You've got the judicial review. What about the kind of underlying system, legal system, I suppose, that we're that we're dealing with in terms of planning.
11:46
Speaker 4
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Speaker 4
And I think we need to be very careful here because this is a. A very sensitive topic, because we do want to protect the environment. We do want to give people voice when we are considering a project that will affect them. But this is not sustainable, right?So in order sometimes to move forward with the project, you need to concede. Too much to different stakeholders and then you end up with the compounding effects of conceding too much. And then you have a hybrid bill and that is law.
You need to deliver the button on HS2 because you conceded that you might not like, but it is law. People are just delivering what was agreed. The question is a sense of proportionality, um, and gold plating. We want all of those things. We want to protect all the but all the time. What is the cost of that decision?Do we know because that. Will need to be delivered later. And now there is this debate of maybe we don't get the proportionality right for 150,000,003 hundred 000 per bat.
You need to deliver the button on HS2 because you conceded that you might not like, but it is law. People are just delivering what was agreed. The question is a sense of proportionality, um, and gold plating. We want all of those things. We want to protect all the but all the time. What is the cost of that decision?Do we know because that. Will need to be delivered later. And now there is this debate of maybe we don't get the proportionality right for 150,000,003 hundred 000 per bat.
11:47
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Was just I'm not entirely I'm not fully fully with you on this one. I know the environment is important and engaging people is important. But at the moment, and when we're looking at part of these big projects, I think there's two big issues. And one is that everybody is. Terrorized by fear of the judicial review process. And therefore you get immensely gold plated environmental impact assessments. You get planning that basically doesn't help delivering anything, but it gets produced.
And these bills, Crossrail was the largest build and HS2 was the largest hybrid bill ever entered. Now Sizewell C, uh, you know, sort of. It's just insane what's happening because they like to gold plate things to avoid judicial review. I think that's one thing. And that's a system problem, not an environmental protection problem. And the second issue is nobody can say no. I always think it's in a good case in point it's London Euston station roughly pointing there where nobody was in power to say no.
And everybody just put planning obligation on planning obligation. Camden Council wanted this. Network Rail wanted this, TfL wanted this. The taxi drivers wanted that. There was nobody structurally in a position to actually say, no, you can't have that, you know, and once everybody wants ages to basically said yes to everything because there was nobody to say no. The costs went up from 4 to 9 billion. It became unaffordable, you know, so if you have a system in many of our mega projects at the moment, we don't have a system that actually says, no, sorry, that's not going to be feasible.
And these bills, Crossrail was the largest build and HS2 was the largest hybrid bill ever entered. Now Sizewell C, uh, you know, sort of. It's just insane what's happening because they like to gold plate things to avoid judicial review. I think that's one thing. And that's a system problem, not an environmental protection problem. And the second issue is nobody can say no. I always think it's in a good case in point it's London Euston station roughly pointing there where nobody was in power to say no.
And everybody just put planning obligation on planning obligation. Camden Council wanted this. Network Rail wanted this, TfL wanted this. The taxi drivers wanted that. There was nobody structurally in a position to actually say, no, you can't have that, you know, and once everybody wants ages to basically said yes to everything because there was nobody to say no. The costs went up from 4 to 9 billion. It became unaffordable, you know, so if you have a system in many of our mega projects at the moment, we don't have a system that actually says, no, sorry, that's not going to be feasible.
11:49
11:50
11:50
Speaker 5
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Speaker 5
I think that one element is, as I like to paper, about the six ingredients, right?There is one about planning. So, you know, the whole about is in going slow or thinking slow and then acting fast. And that means particularly when I see things and at Oxford as well, when we train and engage with the SROs and project directors across government, you know, as Juliano said, they're all highly capable, motivated up to their eyeballs. You know, there's no lack of those kind of things, but they're often operating in a system that doesn't let them do their job very well.
And particularly when we're thinking it's not just the front end where we're underinvesting, you know, 10%, 20% of total project costs should go in a planning phase. In successful projects. We can see that there's enough data on this. But equally then during the execution, because things will come up, we need a large enough body on the client side to do that. So when we looked at some of the numbers recently, it is for every 20 million we want to spend, we need one person full time in the client's team.
And that can be government employee, that can be somebody who's hired in from an engineering company or whatever. But that's sort of the size of the team that needs to look after these big projects. And there's just too many constraints around Adele and Adele numbers in the government in place to actually just create an organization where that happens. And so many projects are run basically by a single person with a spreadsheet in Treasury's basement, because there's just no people. You.
And particularly when we're thinking it's not just the front end where we're underinvesting, you know, 10%, 20% of total project costs should go in a planning phase. In successful projects. We can see that there's enough data on this. But equally then during the execution, because things will come up, we need a large enough body on the client side to do that. So when we looked at some of the numbers recently, it is for every 20 million we want to spend, we need one person full time in the client's team.
And that can be government employee, that can be somebody who's hired in from an engineering company or whatever. But that's sort of the size of the team that needs to look after these big projects. And there's just too many constraints around Adele and Adele numbers in the government in place to actually just create an organization where that happens. And so many projects are run basically by a single person with a spreadsheet in Treasury's basement, because there's just no people. You.
11:51
11:52
Speaker 8
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Speaker 8
Thank you very much, chair. I just wanted to pursue that. It's a huge point, I'm afraid, but I'm sure there's a quick answer. The problems that we're facing between getting the balance right, between all the negotiations and the evolution of our regulatory system, whether it's heritage protections, environmental protections, or whatever, the balance between that and government being able to say, we have got to have this. And therefore, I we as government can afford to be and must be draconian. Those problems must be faced by every country.
But what is it that makes this country different?Are there countries which have got a better, more effective balance that have gone through these processes, like us?Or basically, are we so fundamentally culturally and politically different that there's nothing we can learn from other countries?
But what is it that makes this country different?Are there countries which have got a better, more effective balance that have gone through these processes, like us?Or basically, are we so fundamentally culturally and politically different that there's nothing we can learn from other countries?
11:52
Speaker 5
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Speaker 5
I think we can learn something about sequencing. I mean, very, very different country, China, right?We're all looking at China as the country. When the central government says something, it happens the next day. You know, this kind of like idea of, you know, infinite power to execute big projects. And once you look into that, that's actually not true for them. The sequence, the politics differently. So in China, everything starts at the local level.
Once the local level is bought into a project, goes to the regional level, and then slowly goes up until it finally reaches Beijing. And at that point in time, consent and political support and political power has been stacked up behind a big project for years in advance. The bridge between Hong Kong, Macau and Zhuhai took 1520 years to arrange. And then finally, the central government announced the construction began the next day. We do it differently in our system. We announce things and then the politics starts.
The planning, the consenting starts, you know, again, 15 years later, we also start construction. It's just a different way of sequencing the politics in this process.
Once the local level is bought into a project, goes to the regional level, and then slowly goes up until it finally reaches Beijing. And at that point in time, consent and political support and political power has been stacked up behind a big project for years in advance. The bridge between Hong Kong, Macau and Zhuhai took 1520 years to arrange. And then finally, the central government announced the construction began the next day. We do it differently in our system. We announce things and then the politics starts.
The planning, the consenting starts, you know, again, 15 years later, we also start construction. It's just a different way of sequencing the politics in this process.
11:54
11:54
11:54
11:54
Speaker 5
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Speaker 5
And I think the maybe not China, but Europe, right?Regional and even national masterplans this is what's going to happen that are then binding, unless it is a change to the plan. You know, those are consulted on those have the local participation, those have the environmental consideration, those get nature England. Those get, uh, heritage England, etc. in place to provide input. But once the plan is done, sort of everything else is grandfathered in in terms of individual schemes, unless the plan changes.
Right. And I think again, a bit like China, you know, two different two very different cases, two very different regimes, whether we like them or not. But it's a question about the problem of sequencing. Um, you know, the problem is not democratic participation.
Right. And I think again, a bit like China, you know, two different two very different cases, two very different regimes, whether we like them or not. But it's a question about the problem of sequencing. Um, you know, the problem is not democratic participation.
11:55
11:55
Speaker 6
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Speaker 6
I have a slightly different view on this. Um almost all. All papers that you see published in infrastructure project management journals and scientific literature, they will have boundary conditions and limitations that you need to acknowledge the institutional system in place before making any comparisons, and to argue that China can be used as a as an example, I think we need to be very careful here in terms of the structures in place. Um, certainly they are delivering a lot. Um and there are questions that um in terms of what do we want as a society and how do we, how do we deliver projects and the way we want to treat the process and bring people along as participation?The key consideration, I think it's missing.
Um, we are arguing for all the right things, but we cannot have all of them because we cannot afford to have all of the nice things that each different person, agency and organisation is supporting with their agenda. So the conversation that seems to be missing in the planning and definition is absolutely define what you what you will do before you start constructing. That's that's a no brainer. But equally, can we have a sensible conversation about cost?It would be fantastic if we could have all of these things.
But can we afford. I don't think that conversation is happening.
Um, we are arguing for all the right things, but we cannot have all of them because we cannot afford to have all of the nice things that each different person, agency and organisation is supporting with their agenda. So the conversation that seems to be missing in the planning and definition is absolutely define what you what you will do before you start constructing. That's that's a no brainer. But equally, can we have a sensible conversation about cost?It would be fantastic if we could have all of these things.
But can we afford. I don't think that conversation is happening.
11:57
11:57
Speaker 9
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Speaker 9
Um, thank you. Um, do you think the country is capable of delivering new the New Towns programme in a reasonable time and to a reasonable budget?And what do you think are the most significant barriers?Because I fully anybody who's done any kind of development in this country recognises the fact that too many people can stop it. The reason you get no development in London, you can spend thousands, millions of pounds doing something, and then two people at the committee can just say, ah, now we've changed our minds.
So, you know, are we even capable of delivering any any big projects?And HS2 is an I'd argue is an example that we're not. But that's just a personal view.
So, you know, are we even capable of delivering any any big projects?And HS2 is an I'd argue is an example that we're not. But that's just a personal view.
11:58
Speaker 6
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Speaker 6
Um, you know, academics often have problems with the word reasonable because it needs to be defined. What you mean by reasonable time and reasonable cost. But let's go with that for the moment. Um, I don't think it's a problem of individual skills. We have a lack of skills. We need more. And there's a report from the Nao this morning, um that I received an email that I need to read, but actually we have to invest in skills and unlock organisations in construction industry to invest in their own employees at all levels.
And we are certainly seeing that they're not investing. They're not mechanisms for them to invest in training. The next leadership of this major programs. We have the MBA, major infrastructure delivery at UCL, and in engaging with the market, we have thousands of talented people who want. But the companies don't have a talent, um, proposition in place to sponsor them. Um, so there must be incentives if we want across all levels. I'm just highlighting one example.
If we want to unlock more skills so the margins are not there. The companies need to invest. So what can government do to unlock the gap of skills and investment?To your question on what is stopping us, I don't think it is a question of individual skills and people. We have the people. They are super talented. It is the system. How do you develop the system to be in place so that they can perform?So you have multiple individuals in H two world class people.
They are delivering high performance, but they can only do so much at the individual level, at the organisational level, because they need to comply with a system. So even if you wanted to go further and do something different, you cannot do that. So it is a systemic problem. And in my mind, you need to be very clear on the capabilities that you need at all levels. So before saying we want HS2 limited to be doing this and DFT to be doing that, and the supply chain to be doing that, do we know if they can?Do you know, if you have the market and the supply chain to do that, where is the evidence to make the decision of who should be doing that?And once you make a decision, you need to empower people to be paid, right?So the, the rationale that you will bring top talent and you cannot pay them and you cannot have the capacity, right?So we have examples of projects where you possibly had people, number of people inside the client to handle five interfaces, your procurement strategy, for whatever reasons, turned out that you now have almost 40 tier one interfaces and you still have five people inside to deal with that.
So it's a question of organizational design and how do you recruit and retain the talent. So you need people to be in charge of each one of those interfaces, or there will be opportunistic behaviours and commercial games played with the market.
And we are certainly seeing that they're not investing. They're not mechanisms for them to invest in training. The next leadership of this major programs. We have the MBA, major infrastructure delivery at UCL, and in engaging with the market, we have thousands of talented people who want. But the companies don't have a talent, um, proposition in place to sponsor them. Um, so there must be incentives if we want across all levels. I'm just highlighting one example.
If we want to unlock more skills so the margins are not there. The companies need to invest. So what can government do to unlock the gap of skills and investment?To your question on what is stopping us, I don't think it is a question of individual skills and people. We have the people. They are super talented. It is the system. How do you develop the system to be in place so that they can perform?So you have multiple individuals in H two world class people.
They are delivering high performance, but they can only do so much at the individual level, at the organisational level, because they need to comply with a system. So even if you wanted to go further and do something different, you cannot do that. So it is a systemic problem. And in my mind, you need to be very clear on the capabilities that you need at all levels. So before saying we want HS2 limited to be doing this and DFT to be doing that, and the supply chain to be doing that, do we know if they can?Do you know, if you have the market and the supply chain to do that, where is the evidence to make the decision of who should be doing that?And once you make a decision, you need to empower people to be paid, right?So the, the rationale that you will bring top talent and you cannot pay them and you cannot have the capacity, right?So we have examples of projects where you possibly had people, number of people inside the client to handle five interfaces, your procurement strategy, for whatever reasons, turned out that you now have almost 40 tier one interfaces and you still have five people inside to deal with that.
So it's a question of organizational design and how do you recruit and retain the talent. So you need people to be in charge of each one of those interfaces, or there will be opportunistic behaviours and commercial games played with the market.
12:01
Speaker 9
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Speaker 9
Okay, can I, can I focus us on a little bit on. Because the capability to do this, you've talked about a systemic problems, failure. But do we have a system that can generate the finance source, the organisational structure?I sit on the London Assembly, and one of the key things about the Olympic Park is they actually had the levers to pull. They had the power to do something. Now, do we have a system that can deliver that around new towns, long term financing, source and contracting and grandfathering rights?How do we place new towns beyond the tinkering of the incoming government?And also, one of the things that happened in City Hall when, when the mayor couldn't tinker in something, he then ignored it, which which was in many cases worse.
So how can we how can we build a system that can set something going for the long term and then, you know, it be successful in and of itself.
So how can we how can we build a system that can set something going for the long term and then, you know, it be successful in and of itself.
12:02
Speaker 5
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Speaker 5
Which goes back to the earlier point about isn't there isn't a single point of accountability and a coordinating mechanism, particularly around the front end, to the capability point. Uh, I mean, your own previous reports highlighted lack of capability as particularly in planning. And that's even before we come into execution. It's one of the key, key issues there. Um, and I think with the financing side of things, yeah, National housing Bank has announced 50 billion or target of £50 billion, but that's general.
So there's no equivalent announcement for the new towns. So far. So there's a general housing intervention so far. What does that mean for the new towns. It's definitely something that can be uh you know, you could think about that. And what we've seen in the past where it has worked. Milton Keynes, Terminal five, you know, those kind of old projects. We used to be able to deliver that. So probably our capability to do so has a little bit atrophied over time.
But there was also something there about sort of how do we capture the value, not just the social economic benefits, but simply land value capture is given to the private sector and just goes into that without currently a mechanism to then use that to borrow against or to defer payments. Right. And France, for instance, National Railways hand over disused brownfield sites to the government for development into housing, and they don't want payment immediately. They want payment once that housing is established and earns rents.
So a simple way between one government body and another government body to finance things. So for us here in the UK, I think one of the biggest problems is how do we capture the land value?How does the public sector government capture better?The land value is one of the key elements, you know, that would unblock so much funding. Um, and that would be, you know, a policy intervention to do that.
So there's no equivalent announcement for the new towns. So far. So there's a general housing intervention so far. What does that mean for the new towns. It's definitely something that can be uh you know, you could think about that. And what we've seen in the past where it has worked. Milton Keynes, Terminal five, you know, those kind of old projects. We used to be able to deliver that. So probably our capability to do so has a little bit atrophied over time.
But there was also something there about sort of how do we capture the value, not just the social economic benefits, but simply land value capture is given to the private sector and just goes into that without currently a mechanism to then use that to borrow against or to defer payments. Right. And France, for instance, National Railways hand over disused brownfield sites to the government for development into housing, and they don't want payment immediately. They want payment once that housing is established and earns rents.
So a simple way between one government body and another government body to finance things. So for us here in the UK, I think one of the biggest problems is how do we capture the land value?How does the public sector government capture better?The land value is one of the key elements, you know, that would unblock so much funding. Um, and that would be, you know, a policy intervention to do that.
12:04
Speaker 9
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Speaker 9
And just lastly, one of the things that struck me about the inquiry, all of the people who've given us evidence have no know what the problem is in their given area. But this morning's discourse has led me to believe we need someone of authority on this particular thing, on any particular thing. Are we talking, you know, do we need the Prime Minister to say, this is my plan and I'm going to lead it and unblock those things?Or can you set up a mechanism that can just do it without that political leadership from the very top?
12:04
12:04
12:04
12:05
12:05
Speaker 6
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Speaker 6
You need the organisation and cabinet level support. So do you have a minister in charge of this?Um, but without a team and an organisation and properly resourced, um capability. Over 50, 60 years, as I said, it cannot be your Tuesday morning job. It needs a full time dedicated delivery unit to be in charge of this programme and own it. So where would you go in 20 years time to ask for data and benefits, and who is in charge?You cannot go to different sites, okay.
12:05
12:05
Speaker 12
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Speaker 12
Thank you very much. I mean, to some extent, you've been making references to other projects, um, both at home and abroad throughout this morning, but I was wondering whether you could pick a particular or 2 or 3 examples, probably from abroad that could apply to us. That has really worked and why they've worked and what could, how you could apply the reasons they work to our system, which we've already discussed, is probably inadequate.
12:06
Speaker 5
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Speaker 5
I think, sir, I think there's a couple of cases to learn from, right?There's not, as I said earlier, uh, to there's not the one case that would be let's all be a bit more like Singapore. Right?Okay. Interesting financing mechanism in Singapore. You know, maybe we can learn from that. You know, let's all be about the planning processes that are more spatially oriented in continental Europe. Let's do a little bit of that, you know, sort of it's not the one case fits all, but there's definitely some elements there.
You know, here powers, capability building, building an organization, uh, where we can actually say, look, there's something that can be done and can be replicated. And there's also a question of, you know, um, I'm, as I said earlier, I'm happy to share my long list here of showing us that these things can be done at speed. So in Freiburg, Germany, they built a new town extension with, uh, local participation against the fixed deadline tied to an electoral cycle. And they did it, you know, so these things don't necessarily have to take longer time.
And you can also have different decision rules to increase the quality. So you look at Hamburg, decisions are not made of who is best placed to extract the most rent out of the land that has now been made available. But you know who builds something that is pretty, that is useful, even if it's not the most economic side of things. So there's kind of a question of, you know, how does this work?And to the earlier point, I think it's one of the things that I find quite frightening.
Where the politics are going at the moment is in the element of devolution. You know, we're just talking here about we need a central governing body while the rest of the government is thinking about let's have less of those things. Yeah. I'm from Oxford. I think we're pretty good at fixing potholes. But many local councils can't even do that. Um, so, you know, if the more we put things like planning of these very big schemes into local hands, right?Whereas the capability, where's the capability at scale everywhere in the country where it's needed.
And that's, I think, something we haven't really solved. Um.
You know, here powers, capability building, building an organization, uh, where we can actually say, look, there's something that can be done and can be replicated. And there's also a question of, you know, um, I'm, as I said earlier, I'm happy to share my long list here of showing us that these things can be done at speed. So in Freiburg, Germany, they built a new town extension with, uh, local participation against the fixed deadline tied to an electoral cycle. And they did it, you know, so these things don't necessarily have to take longer time.
And you can also have different decision rules to increase the quality. So you look at Hamburg, decisions are not made of who is best placed to extract the most rent out of the land that has now been made available. But you know who builds something that is pretty, that is useful, even if it's not the most economic side of things. So there's kind of a question of, you know, how does this work?And to the earlier point, I think it's one of the things that I find quite frightening.
Where the politics are going at the moment is in the element of devolution. You know, we're just talking here about we need a central governing body while the rest of the government is thinking about let's have less of those things. Yeah. I'm from Oxford. I think we're pretty good at fixing potholes. But many local councils can't even do that. Um, so, you know, if the more we put things like planning of these very big schemes into local hands, right?Whereas the capability, where's the capability at scale everywhere in the country where it's needed.
And that's, I think, something we haven't really solved. Um.
12:08
12:08
Speaker 6
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Speaker 6
If I respond in, in generalizing the question. So we did, um, a recent review of more than ten 000 papers, which is published. And the key question was how do we scientifically design a new organization to be in charge of these major infrastructure projects?Because it seems to be the case that it's always what did we do last time?And let's replicate and add a few things. So what is the science behind it?What are the management theories that you should consider and the trade offs required?Um, so this paper was awarded the paper of the year by the Association for Project Management and the PhD research.
Um doctor Carolyn As-sanie um was award. Awarded the best doctoral thesis this year by a p m as well. So long story short, in 10,000 papers, the generic pattern is if you were not clear, what are the capabilities?Where do they sit inside or outside?And do we have enough people?Can we afford them?Can we hire and retain them?And the next question is how does that organization evolve over time?Because that's not a static.
So that was another big failure from the 10,000 papers literature. We tend to design things and understand that once we put things in place, that's it. So if you were to evolve over 50, 60 years, that organization that you are putting in charge of the town's program, who is accountable for making that happen is that a group?It sits with HR, the chief people officer?Where's the governance around that?When do you do that?Is there clarity?If you don't do that, if you don't transition, the people without the expertise out of the organization, you might be delivering a railway systems project with ten others and vice versa.
So there is a lot of mismatch in terms of, do we have an organization that is fit for purpose?One example, um, if you go back when Mark Thurston took leadership of HS2 limited in 2017 as CEO, um, and there are multiple presentations from Mark Thurston on this. So the main question from government is, can you develop an organization capable of delivering the complexity levels that this project is observing and the program that Mark led with, with board level sponsorship and capability program, was one of the best that we saw in a study that we investigated.
And I think we need to start decomposing projects and understanding the areas that we did well so that we can learn, repeat and evolve. Why was that helpful?Why was that good?Because you had a clear system of what are the capabilities?There was a list of 25 capabilities or areas, and they measured. Imagine that the maturity that you had inside the organization and the gap. And then you have a plan in place to be capable or mature enough in that particular area.
And you can demonstrate that. I think we need that discipline on where is the evidence that you can that you are capable as an organization at all levels?And as Alex said, I have my doubts as well. If local level would have the. The capacity, the number of people. And let's stop there.
Um doctor Carolyn As-sanie um was award. Awarded the best doctoral thesis this year by a p m as well. So long story short, in 10,000 papers, the generic pattern is if you were not clear, what are the capabilities?Where do they sit inside or outside?And do we have enough people?Can we afford them?Can we hire and retain them?And the next question is how does that organization evolve over time?Because that's not a static.
So that was another big failure from the 10,000 papers literature. We tend to design things and understand that once we put things in place, that's it. So if you were to evolve over 50, 60 years, that organization that you are putting in charge of the town's program, who is accountable for making that happen is that a group?It sits with HR, the chief people officer?Where's the governance around that?When do you do that?Is there clarity?If you don't do that, if you don't transition, the people without the expertise out of the organization, you might be delivering a railway systems project with ten others and vice versa.
So there is a lot of mismatch in terms of, do we have an organization that is fit for purpose?One example, um, if you go back when Mark Thurston took leadership of HS2 limited in 2017 as CEO, um, and there are multiple presentations from Mark Thurston on this. So the main question from government is, can you develop an organization capable of delivering the complexity levels that this project is observing and the program that Mark led with, with board level sponsorship and capability program, was one of the best that we saw in a study that we investigated.
And I think we need to start decomposing projects and understanding the areas that we did well so that we can learn, repeat and evolve. Why was that helpful?Why was that good?Because you had a clear system of what are the capabilities?There was a list of 25 capabilities or areas, and they measured. Imagine that the maturity that you had inside the organization and the gap. And then you have a plan in place to be capable or mature enough in that particular area.
And you can demonstrate that. I think we need that discipline on where is the evidence that you can that you are capable as an organization at all levels?And as Alex said, I have my doubts as well. If local level would have the. The capacity, the number of people. And let's stop there.
12:12
Speaker 12
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Speaker 12
So I mean. From what you're saying, I mean, I get the impression that the government's kind of lost its ambition on all this. And if we had a firm central. I mean, your your example of Holland and Germany making these projects legally binding sounds a really good project. I mean, maybe we ought to have all the political discussion like, like, like we do over a bill, parliamentary bill, you know, converting it into an act. And I'm just sort of wondering, do all governments lose their ambition?And so these projects just sort of wind down.
I mean, how do we keep that spirit of ambition going?
I mean, how do we keep that spirit of ambition going?
12:13
Speaker 5
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Speaker 5
I think it's about building a system that survives once attention goes elsewhere, right?If I think about it said, what are the best say, for instance, I, I deeply admire and researching these things. I deeply admire, for instance, how universal credit was executed. And the key strategy was there. After all, what happened in the beginning to make the project as boring as possible, right?And Neil Couling, who was then the project lead on this one, he did a great job of making the project boring and getting on with the job of delivering.
Right. And so I think there is something there about us and, you know, and how can we make these projects so boring that they don't constantly end up in the press and in the media. So how can we build a the capability, a body, a system that basically moves on and does the execution of things after it has been started and doesn't constantly require that re-injection of political goodwill or doesn't constantly acquire, attract media attention and gets constantly pulled this way, that way, and experience a lot of friction.
So it's all about, you know, how can we build a system that this one is actually built on the foundations that it will deliver, even when political interest is moving sideways or waning, you know?Yeah. And then these mega projects survive. Otherwise they just get wound up and, uh. Mhm.
Right. And so I think there is something there about us and, you know, and how can we make these projects so boring that they don't constantly end up in the press and in the media. So how can we build a the capability, a body, a system that basically moves on and does the execution of things after it has been started and doesn't constantly require that re-injection of political goodwill or doesn't constantly acquire, attract media attention and gets constantly pulled this way, that way, and experience a lot of friction.
So it's all about, you know, how can we build a system that this one is actually built on the foundations that it will deliver, even when political interest is moving sideways or waning, you know?Yeah. And then these mega projects survive. Otherwise they just get wound up and, uh. Mhm.
12:14
Speaker 6
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Speaker 6
I will go back to my point on the, on the data. Um, so if you have the UK Centre of Excellence for infrastructure as Nesta and it is arguably one of the best agencies in the world, and that's recognised everywhere I go. And if you go to the OECD, there are multiple countries around the table and they constantly come back to what is the UK doing?It is a centre of gravity. However, we need to. Equip them as as a society to have the tools and the data to have an informed debate beyond superficial um, narratives that actually don't really look at the benefits or what's being delivered in terms of the scope.
So if we were to have that. Data set, it would be a powerful tool to argue for value creation and the societal aspirations that we want. And Nesta could have a much more, um. I'm trying to find the word um, it's not strong, but the, the legitimacy to decide certain actions informed by a public database on costs and benefits would go a long way. And potentially you would cut out some of the questions and the very open system that we have of people challenging the decisions.
If that was indeed transparent and in the public domain.
So if we were to have that. Data set, it would be a powerful tool to argue for value creation and the societal aspirations that we want. And Nesta could have a much more, um. I'm trying to find the word um, it's not strong, but the, the legitimacy to decide certain actions informed by a public database on costs and benefits would go a long way. And potentially you would cut out some of the questions and the very open system that we have of people challenging the decisions.
If that was indeed transparent and in the public domain.
12:16
12:16
Speaker 13
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Speaker 13
Thank you. Um, well, my questions really to summarise, um, to ask you to summarise where we've got to and you've mentioned land value capture several times. So we'll take that as a given. I just like to go back to the comments you've both made. I think about the importance of and you gave it in your example of China, but the importance of, um, local building from the local up. And then you both said, I think at different times that just isn't the capability.
Um, at a local level to do that, given where the government is with its devolution programme or intentions and ambitions, what would be your recommendation to move?Us in that?Direction?And if you've got one last recommendation beyond that, what is it?
Um, at a local level to do that, given where the government is with its devolution programme or intentions and ambitions, what would be your recommendation to move?Us in that?Direction?And if you've got one last recommendation beyond that, what is it?
12:17
Speaker 5
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Speaker 5
I think capabilities can be built and strengthened. Can learn surprisingly. And uh, yeah, in Oxford we have, uh, we train, educate, uh, the SROs and of the GMP projects. There's fewer of them now. A lot of the digital stuff went into departmental boards for major projects with devolution, a lot will move into sort of a lower, uh, out into the local areas, right?Whereas that similar, whether it is through a unified programme or the civil service academy or something like that.
Whereas the capability building that actually does that at scale across the country. So that would be my kind of big question around these things. So, you know, uh, yeah. So I think that's one important element of that to build that capability out everywhere else around the country. Simple as that.
Whereas the capability building that actually does that at scale across the country. So that would be my kind of big question around these things. So, you know, uh, yeah. So I think that's one important element of that to build that capability out everywhere else around the country. Simple as that.
12:18
Speaker 6
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Speaker 6
I would agree with that. And that goes back to my point of unlocking skills. Individuals that we need in terms of capacity for the industry at all levels. That alone will not solve the problem. You need organizations. And that's a new design. So skills, competencies, individual level, organisational capabilities, firm level construct. How do you design an organisation?If the processes that if you put the best talent that we have in this country inside the organisation, they will be able to perform and deliver world class assets and outcomes?That's a different question.
So I would argue for a recommendation. Whatever is the flavour of the year, devolution, centralisation, where is the evidence that your vision and strategy, if you implement that, they can deliver a local level or they can deliver a central level. Bring the evidence. Did you assess the organisations that they have?What is the current levels of capabilities?If you don't have the capabilities there and you want them to deliver, what is the plan?Publish the roadmap to build that capability inside the organisation.
How are you going to recruit hundreds, thousands of people that you need to deliver that?Is there a plan or it's just an ambition?And it goes back to the announcement of 1.5 million. Again, where is the evidence?So I think we need to be much more scientific and rigour in decisions in social sciences and management and leadership. We are in several other areas of civil engineering in terms of health and safety and standards and so on. We don't seem to have that discipline in terms of where is the analysis?Have you seen?The analysis?We have plenty of reports published with 7090 people interviewed, top people, CEOs and so on.
And then you have a list of ten recommendations. It begs the question, how did they arrive to the ten recommendations?Where is the scientific analytical coding and the patterns that you will have from 90 interviews?You have 90 transcripts in front of you. How did you go from that to the recommendations and the patterns?So that data analysis, it needs to be way more rigorous to inform decisions. That would be my recommendation.
So I would argue for a recommendation. Whatever is the flavour of the year, devolution, centralisation, where is the evidence that your vision and strategy, if you implement that, they can deliver a local level or they can deliver a central level. Bring the evidence. Did you assess the organisations that they have?What is the current levels of capabilities?If you don't have the capabilities there and you want them to deliver, what is the plan?Publish the roadmap to build that capability inside the organisation.
How are you going to recruit hundreds, thousands of people that you need to deliver that?Is there a plan or it's just an ambition?And it goes back to the announcement of 1.5 million. Again, where is the evidence?So I think we need to be much more scientific and rigour in decisions in social sciences and management and leadership. We are in several other areas of civil engineering in terms of health and safety and standards and so on. We don't seem to have that discipline in terms of where is the analysis?Have you seen?The analysis?We have plenty of reports published with 7090 people interviewed, top people, CEOs and so on.
And then you have a list of ten recommendations. It begs the question, how did they arrive to the ten recommendations?Where is the scientific analytical coding and the patterns that you will have from 90 interviews?You have 90 transcripts in front of you. How did you go from that to the recommendations and the patterns?So that data analysis, it needs to be way more rigorous to inform decisions. That would be my recommendation.
12:21
Speaker 5
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Speaker 5
Let me pull that back. One more thing is around us and sort of devolution or not devolution, should there be some sort of central coordinating mechanism?And I think what we've learned looking at comparing, for instance, Crossrail to Thames Tideway, is that Crossrail built 14 different things, but every single thing was special and unique. And so and there is a without a coordinating body, whether devolved or not devolved of the execution around these seven towns and future new new towns, uh, without a coordination, there won't be any learning between these different sites.
So it is about capability building, but it's also ongoing learning and ongoing evolution of the programme that needs to be somewhere sitting somewhere in one body. Because without that single accountability for learning, it won't happen. Um, I think that's sort of what we see and that's what we see when we're looking at successful big programmes, mega projects in its own right. This is all about that kind of accountability to improve the performance year on, year on year.
So it is about capability building, but it's also ongoing learning and ongoing evolution of the programme that needs to be somewhere sitting somewhere in one body. Because without that single accountability for learning, it won't happen. Um, I think that's sort of what we see and that's what we see when we're looking at successful big programmes, mega projects in its own right. This is all about that kind of accountability to improve the performance year on, year on year.
12:22
Speaker 13
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Speaker 13
Thank you. I mean, refreshingly, we've got through the morning without mentioning AI, which of course, in terms of learning is very important. But AI isn't going to come up with, I think, something you mentioned, Alexander, which is the ability to say no. The ability to say yes. See, can you can you make a bit of a comment on all of the data analysis and learning is going to happen in a much speedier way anyway.
12:22
12:22
Speaker 5
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Speaker 5
Support some of our analyses, but it always goes back to one of a beautiful piece of very angry research was published in 1974 by two architects and urban planners called Rittel and Webber, and it was called about wicked problems because right then, in 1974, they had a conference where they now had computers big enough that they thought they can plan the perfect town, and so they had a conference about this. Can we design, can we get a computer to design the perfect town?Uh, and they wrote a very angry paper and said, it's a no, you can't, because technology, you know, because the problem statement isn't even clear.
What do you want out of a town that doesn't have a single answer?Stakeholders can't be satisfied. You know, sometimes it's just about minimizing the average dissatisfaction. As somebody from government told me the other day, as a project title or objective. And so, you know, there's these things that don't have a solution. So technology is not going to build the perfect town. Technology is not going to align all the stakeholders between behind the plan. Technology is not going to deal with politics.
And, uh, yeah, I don't think AI is going to make a big change around that. The tricky issues are still there.
What do you want out of a town that doesn't have a single answer?Stakeholders can't be satisfied. You know, sometimes it's just about minimizing the average dissatisfaction. As somebody from government told me the other day, as a project title or objective. And so, you know, there's these things that don't have a solution. So technology is not going to build the perfect town. Technology is not going to align all the stakeholders between behind the plan. Technology is not going to deal with politics.
And, uh, yeah, I don't think AI is going to make a big change around that. The tricky issues are still there.
12:24
12:24
12:24
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Thank you. Great. Thank you. I wonder if I could ask two very quick questions before we wrap up. I think in the course of the conversation, we talked about HS2, uh, Hinkley last week, we talked about reservoirs. And I think from memory have not built any for 30 years. And the first one we're going to build will take at least ten years, say ten years, it'll be at least ten years. But is it is why is this a uniquely or why is this a uniquely English thing that we're so slow and so limp?Is it an English thing?And, you know, to to your point, Professor Denicol, you mentioned what we talked about in our previous reports.
Why isn't the government gripping it?If this is something that, you know, it's not unique to this government if it's going on for so long, why, why can't people step up to the plate and get on with it?And you know, that's notwithstanding the fact, as you you know, you praise people that are working in this field. Mr.. Various others. But why isn't it being sorted?
Why isn't the government gripping it?If this is something that, you know, it's not unique to this government if it's going on for so long, why, why can't people step up to the plate and get on with it?And you know, that's notwithstanding the fact, as you you know, you praise people that are working in this field. Mr.. Various others. But why isn't it being sorted?
12:25
12:26
12:26
Speaker 6
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Speaker 6
If I could summarize something that's not really possible to. But, um. What do I think it's different in this country compared to others. Um, we want many things as a society in terms of sophistication and doing the right things. And we established processes and structures to do so. And that has an impact in a cost in the system that delivers major projects. So the trade offs, if we use the button, okay, on HS2, I dare to say that before you knew the cost of that button, HS2, everybody would agree and you wouldn't find anyone against building the button to protect the bats on HS2.
But once you knew the cost, that became a problem of proportionality. So if you could we be spending that money elsewhere in in more interesting outcomes perhaps?Or should we. So this is a system problem. And the conversation that I think it's missing is that we again have ambitions and requirements, and we put structures in place to do the right thing. But we need to have a sensible conversation on the speed that it takes to do all of the right things.
If that can be concurrently done or if it's sequential, because that is impacting the infrastructure provision that is impacting the well-being of people and economic growth. So if you want to be real that you need to infrastructure, how do you cut time out of this process and what are you willing to give up?What are the trade offs?And I think that is once you have all of these structures, there are good things. But they can be combined. Ending. And if you don't have a place with the authority to have a sensible conversation, to remove or have trade offs, it just keeps adding on.
So you go from 10,000 pages on Hinkley Point C to 70, 80,000 pages, and the Crossrail bill in Sizewell and Crossrail and HS2 bill. So where does it stop?So I think there must be some hard decisions and there won't be easy. Nature of trade offs, isn't it?
But once you knew the cost, that became a problem of proportionality. So if you could we be spending that money elsewhere in in more interesting outcomes perhaps?Or should we. So this is a system problem. And the conversation that I think it's missing is that we again have ambitions and requirements, and we put structures in place to do the right thing. But we need to have a sensible conversation on the speed that it takes to do all of the right things.
If that can be concurrently done or if it's sequential, because that is impacting the infrastructure provision that is impacting the well-being of people and economic growth. So if you want to be real that you need to infrastructure, how do you cut time out of this process and what are you willing to give up?What are the trade offs?And I think that is once you have all of these structures, there are good things. But they can be combined. Ending. And if you don't have a place with the authority to have a sensible conversation, to remove or have trade offs, it just keeps adding on.
So you go from 10,000 pages on Hinkley Point C to 70, 80,000 pages, and the Crossrail bill in Sizewell and Crossrail and HS2 bill. So where does it stop?So I think there must be some hard decisions and there won't be easy. Nature of trade offs, isn't it?
12:28
Speaker 5
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Speaker 5
But to moderate that answer a little bit, I mean, we've done we've done research on our database now holds more than 23,000 capital projects from around the world. And we crunched the data for the nick before they became. Mr.. A while ago and looked into it. Is it more expensive to build something in the UK?Not particularly. There's no clear pattern for that. Does it take longer?Not particularly. We looked at the same, uh, kind of set of data for the European Commission, because they are still not finished with their 20 regional integration.
That's the big transportation infrastructure like rail, Baltica and the Gotthard Tunnel and those kind of things. There's still projects that were announced in the early 2000 that haven't even finished planning yet, you know, so I think the things yeah, we should. Not fall into this uniqueness trap there that the UK is not, you know, even if it feels slow, we're not uniquely slow compared to any other system in the world, unfortunately. So. But on the other hand, it's a global problem.
So, you know, sort of lots of clever people around the globe. So I'm sure we can, you know, with all the same issues, we might find some new solutions.
That's the big transportation infrastructure like rail, Baltica and the Gotthard Tunnel and those kind of things. There's still projects that were announced in the early 2000 that haven't even finished planning yet, you know, so I think the things yeah, we should. Not fall into this uniqueness trap there that the UK is not, you know, even if it feels slow, we're not uniquely slow compared to any other system in the world, unfortunately. So. But on the other hand, it's a global problem.
So, you know, sort of lots of clever people around the globe. So I'm sure we can, you know, with all the same issues, we might find some new solutions.
12:30
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
There is one very quick question. Just going back to new towns, do you think, notwithstanding what you say about it being crucial to achieve the 1.5 million, do you think we should just bite the bullet on this particular program now?Is it really worth it?Have we missed the boat to some extent?Or, you know, how do we to be more positive perhaps?How do you put positive back into the optimism back into this program now?
12:30
Speaker 6
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Speaker 6
I think we need to move out of the, um biases. Analysis. And um, if we're pessimistic or optimistic and so on. But I would like to see the evidence. Right. So should we stop. Should we go ahead?So where is the evidence?But the. Um, I would perhaps like to see evidence and analysis before you come to the conclusion. Do we go ahead with three out of seven?So what is informing that rather than rhetoric and policy making.
12:31
12:32
12:32
Speaker 5
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Speaker 5
But on the other hand, the impact it would have right when phase two of HS2 got cancelled, you know, and that was very close to actually having royal consent and so on. And we were talking about this little capability. And therefore, nobody in industry wants to invest in capabilities. Because I believe the government and there will be a trust deficit again.