The UK is obsessed with laws and regulations, and will adopt or create them as the priority of government. That is why so many of our government Ministries point towards the EU and UN etc for guidance. We invented the whole idea and so will continue with it.
In my previous role as a UK local government officer the typical value of capital investment projects I oversaw was circa £5m ( not massive but large enough to require significant hoops to jump through).
It would typically take 5 years to get a circa £5m scheme from concept stage to completion.
4 months for business case approvals
10 months for design and public engagement.
12 months for procurement ( UK public sector procurement rules are a nightmare)
10 months for Planning (pre app through to pre-commencement conditions)
24 months for construction.
The politicians were frustrated but did not have the levers to accelerate.
The time period in itself had big implications for the budget - i.e. 5 years worth of compounding construction cost inflation.
An overhaul is needed. My first priority would be to overhaul UK public sector procurement rules.
What caught my attention was that it challenges a commonly repeated assumption that Britain’s productivity problems are primarily the result of underinvestment in infrastructure. Instead it argues that the picture is more nuanced and that questions of delivery capability private sector investment and how effectively money is translated into outcomes may be just as important as the amount being spent.
The LinkedIn article attached is separate but touches on similar themes. It argues that improving productivity is not simply about securing more funding but understanding how systems organisations and people turn investment into measurable results.
I am not an economist or industry commentator so will leave others to debate the analysis. I simply thought it was an interesting contribution to the wider discussion about productivity reform and whether the challenge is one of investment alone or of how effectively we use what we already have.
Good to see you mention the chronic lack of private sector investment- goes a long way to explain poor productivity and growth. Don’t invest in people, R&D, plant etc and it’s not surprising productivity and growth are sluggish. And that comes from the drivers for short/medium term profit coming from the City.
Easy just to focus on just state investment - as you keep saying, the question is more about what we get for the spend and why.
The UK is obsessed with laws and regulations, and will adopt or create them as the priority of government. That is why so many of our government Ministries point towards the EU and UN etc for guidance. We invented the whole idea and so will continue with it.
In my previous role as a UK local government officer the typical value of capital investment projects I oversaw was circa £5m ( not massive but large enough to require significant hoops to jump through).
It would typically take 5 years to get a circa £5m scheme from concept stage to completion.
4 months for business case approvals
10 months for design and public engagement.
12 months for procurement ( UK public sector procurement rules are a nightmare)
10 months for Planning (pre app through to pre-commencement conditions)
24 months for construction.
The politicians were frustrated but did not have the levers to accelerate.
The time period in itself had big implications for the budget - i.e. 5 years worth of compounding construction cost inflation.
An overhaul is needed. My first priority would be to overhaul UK public sector procurement rules.
I was doing some reading around productivity and reform when I came across this article.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/robert-cairns-82081325_points-to-connect-railway-200-edition-activity-7345378852589780994-gp20?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios&rcm=ACoAAAVIGdgBBYt3wDVbmCFggJMsVdSSsaX0Wx4
What caught my attention was that it challenges a commonly repeated assumption that Britain’s productivity problems are primarily the result of underinvestment in infrastructure. Instead it argues that the picture is more nuanced and that questions of delivery capability private sector investment and how effectively money is translated into outcomes may be just as important as the amount being spent.
The LinkedIn article attached is separate but touches on similar themes. It argues that improving productivity is not simply about securing more funding but understanding how systems organisations and people turn investment into measurable results.
I am not an economist or industry commentator so will leave others to debate the analysis. I simply thought it was an interesting contribution to the wider discussion about productivity reform and whether the challenge is one of investment alone or of how effectively we use what we already have.
Good to see you mention the chronic lack of private sector investment- goes a long way to explain poor productivity and growth. Don’t invest in people, R&D, plant etc and it’s not surprising productivity and growth are sluggish. And that comes from the drivers for short/medium term profit coming from the City.
Easy just to focus on just state investment - as you keep saying, the question is more about what we get for the spend and why.
The economies are similar and the populations are similar, but France is 2.7 times larger than the UK, that makes a huge difference.