ODA chair criticises government strategy at launch of Labour-commissioned review
Olympic Delivery Authority chair Sir John Armitt has hit out at the government’s National Infrastructure Plan, writes Joey Gardiner.
Armitt, who this week launched a Labour-commissioned review into how to guarantee the delivery of infrastructure by creating political consensus around projects, said the government’s plan was not based on a strategic assessment of the infrastructure needs of the UK.
He said: “The [national infrastructure] plan isn’t a plan. What we’ve got is a series of projects that the government can see are coming forward. But they don’t constitute a plan.”
An updated version of the National Infrastructure Plan was published by chancellor George Osborne last week, containing a pipeline of £330bn of infrastructure projects which are on the stocks, and which Osborne last year described as a “comprehensive and detailed strategy for coordinating and planning public and private investment in UK infrastructure.”
Armitt made his comments while announcing a panel of industry experts to work on the Infrastructure Review, commissioned by shadow chancellor Ed Balls. Armitt said the review was to find ways to depoliticise infrastructure planning, so plans could be funded without fear of being scrapped by future governments.
Of his initial feeling on the solutions he said: “I think a NPDB (non-departmental public body) or independent body of some kind would be needed.
“To have credibility it would need to come to its views independently of politicians, and also could not be funded or run by the private sector.”
Infrastructure Review panel members will include Rachel Lomax, the former deputy governor of the Bank of England, and Sir David Rowlands, a former Department for Transport permanent secretary and the current chair of Gatwick airport.
Evidence for the review is to be submitted by 31 January2013, with the final report due in September 2013.
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