Home working ‘slowing down’ all UK infrastructure projects, watchdog warns
Working from home is “slowing down all infrastructure projects” in the UK, a key industry figure warned today.
Nick Smallwood, chief executive of the Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA), a government body that helps support the successful delivery of all types of major projects, said some were being delayed partly because more designers are working from home.
Speaking to MPs in Parliament today, Smallwood said projects “are all impacted in the design phase if those designers don’t work directly in the office”.
Asked whether designers working from home were specifically slowing down the delivery of HS2, he replied: “It’s slowing down all infrastructure projects.”
“I’ve seen a significant extension of design duration on projects as a result of hybrid working, so where you had designers in one office all working collaboratively together, the durations were pretty normal,” he explained. “What we’ve seen post-pandemic is a nine to 12-month extension of those durations, that translates into cost and delay.”
It was revealed in the body’s annual report in July that it had downgraded HS2’s rating to “unachievable” or red, believing that its viability may need to be re-assessed amid soaring costs.
This was before the government announced it would axe the Birmingham to Manchester leg of the line.
Smallwood said the “significant cost impact of inflation” was another key reason for the rating, adding that the costs had risen by 26 per cent in one year alone.
“We’re now seeing labour inflation cots come through and so the cost premises for the phases will be impacted by those inflationary pressures,” he added.
MPs on the treasury select committee also heard that the IPA had not been consulted on the controversial decision to axe the Northern Leg of HS2, despite providing advice on its roll-out for years.
Stephen Dance, head of infrastructure at the IPA, said: “Let me just be clear. We were not consulted on the policy decision to cancel phases 2a and 2b.”
He noted that the body’s job had instead been to advise the government “on the deliverability and the commerciality, and the way in which the policy gets delivered” as opposed to specific policy decisions.
Asked later whether we would see the London to Birmingham route delivered during the committee’s lifetime, he said “I hope so, for all our sakes.”
HS2’s widely publicised failings have put a spotlight on the UK’s floundering infrastructure system, with delays to the delivery of major projects becoming a regular occurrence.
“We haven’t built a reservoir since the mid-80s,” Sir John Armitt, chair of the National Infrastructure Commission, told MPs at the same committee hearing.
“To build a reservoir you’re probably talking 12 years, 2 years to fill it up at the end. You’ve to go through extensive planning issues, there’s always been resistance,” he said.
Armitt, who has held roles as chief executive of Network Rail, Costain Group and Union Railways, said that the UK’s planning system was simply “not working.”
A spokesperson for HS2 Ltd said: “As the IPA made clear in March, the decision to change the rating for HS2 Phase 2a reflected the decision taken by government at the time to rephase delivery of this section by two years due to significant inflationary pressures. Design did not hinder Phase 2a in any way.”