Transport
A driver of economic growth
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Transport is a key economic infrastructure sector. Economic infrastructure drives competitiveness and supports economic growth by increasing private and public sector productivity, reducing business costs and diversifying means of production. Transport provides the crucial links that allow people and businesses to prosper.
The Government is committed to delivering an effective, sustainable, transport network for the UK.
With the right transport infrastructure the Government can:
- contribute to the fiscal consolidation whilst supporting a competitive economy – by effectively prioritising public spending and vigorously pursuing efficiency in the transport sector. This will ensure that the links that move goods and people around the economy can be improved;
- support sustainable economic growth and tackle climate change – by transforming the capacity and connectivity of key urban and inter-urban rail networks, and by implementing policies which deliver greener technology. In this way the urgent and unavoidable challenges of climate change can be addressed while maintaining long-term economic growth; and
- promote greater localism – by devolving power back to local people so that solutions to many challenges can be devised, developed, owned, promoted and implemented locally. This will ensure schemes are carefully thought-out and properly implemented and demonstrate high value-for-money.
National Infrastructure Plan and Spending Review
Transport features prominently in the National Infrastructure Plan. The Spending Review also prioritised capital spending on transport projects which can offer high economic returns when compared to investment projects in other sectors. By focusing on projects that deliver greater benefits in return for their costs, the positive impact of capital spending on the wider economy can be maximised.
Overall the Government is investing £30bn in transport over the Spending Review period - including
- Funding for the construction of Crossrail;
- Investment in a high speed rail network;
- £10billion for maintenance and investment in key road and local transport schemes across the country; and
- £14billion of funding to support Network Rail maintenance and investment.
The Government is also committed to reform, improving efficiency and value for money by:
- Tasking Network Rail to deliver 21 per cent efficiency savings over the current regulatory period to 2013-14. Sir Roy McNulty’s review of the value for money of the railways is also examining the overall cost structure of all elements of the railway sector and identifying options for improving value for money for passengers and the taxpayer, while continuing to expand capacity as necessary and drive up passenger satisfaction; and
- Better management of contracts across the Highways Agency (HA) which will save over£240 million by 2014-15. In addition, an expert monitoring group, benchmarking HA performance, will support efficiency improvements with a full review to ensure that HA structure and governance give assurance of value for money.
Supporting delivery
Transport projects can often be complex both in terms of procurement and stakeholder management. Infrastructure UK’s transport team supports the Department for Transport and other key public sector authorities involved in the delivery of major transport infrastructure, transport reform and transport related public services. This support role ranges from project and programme set-up and development, to non-executive procurement support, troubleshooting and post-contract assistance.
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