Improve industry productivity and value for money by having a coordinated project pipeline with a mature approach to procurement and risk management.
- Community priorities
- Productive cities
- Low-hanging fruit
Key messages
Investment in Australia’s public infrastructure is volatile and increasingly targeted towards megaprojects. Both these trends are challenging as they impact the affordability, deliverability and productivity of infrastructure.
Governments can reverse declining productivity by reducing investment volatility to create an efficient, cost-effective, sustainable and attractive market.
By adopting portfolio planning and management best practices to create a more stable infrastructure sector, governments will ensure industry can better respond to government’s needs by providing the materials, skills and capacity to deliver tomorrow’s infrastructure.
Having a stable pipeline will allow the transformation of industry productivity through the adoption of production and manufacturing approaches to reduce cost volatility, lower overall prices and create a more sustainable industry.
What are the impacts?
A portfolio approach to infrastructure pipeline and delivery ensures more effective alignment between industry and government that will improve efficiencies across the sector. Investing in governance framework improvements will improve affordability, unlock significant economic productivity gains and lift industry capacity.
Governments can support industry to reduce risk and uncertainty by using evidence-based decision-making. Moving from a project-based to a system-based approach will lead to higher-quality infrastructure outcomes that ensure the industry is a sector of choice. It delivers a positive social impact through equitable employment and procurement, particularly in the area of gender diversity.
How easy is it to implement?
The development of an industry roadmap will improve project pipeline certainty resulting in significant cost reductions.
Implementation complexity is reduced through the availability of existing frameworks such as the NSW Government’s ‘Ten point commitment to the construction sector’.
How certain are the outcomes?
There are low expected risks.
Government has high control over developing a coordinated project pipeline.
Improvements to project and pipeline transparency will increase community and industry acceptance of the reform.
Industry and governments have jointly acknowledged the need to improve the culture of the infrastructure sector. Strengthening engagement will improve confidence in the community and industry that higher productivity and value can be achieved.
| Governance |
Transparent project pipeline
|
| Economic |
Modern methods of construction
|
| Social |
Gender equality
|
Read more about this recommendation in 3.1 Improving planning, portfolios and pipelines in the 2021 Australian Infrastructure Plan.
Reform implementation pathway
This recommendation comprises of outcomes and activities, which form the reform's implementation pathway.
The implementation pathway is designed to guide change agents on the supporting activities necessary to achieve the overall reform.
For each outcome and activity, we propose change agents to act as:
- Proposed sponsor: facilitate, coordinate and champion the recommendation
- Proposed lead: deliver specific activities or lead related outcomes
- Support: share ownership, contributions or knowledge to enable the reform process.
Improve industry capacity and capability by prioritising procurement and portfolio management and increasing pipeline transparency, certainty and confidence.
0-5 years
Ensure active management of project procurement within the pipeline and help industry to actively manage its capacity and risk exposure by strengthening portfolio management capabilities within the public service.
0-5 years
Develop a jurisdiction-wide, cross-sectoral infrastructure project pipeline that actively tracks progress of projects throughout their lifecycle while considering critical inputs, constraints and risks that influence their deliverability.
0-5 years
Provide annual jurisdiction-wide pipeline briefings that provide industry with a clear macro-level view of expected procurements and act as a forum to provide feedback on pipeline risk.
0-5 years
Ensure future infrastructure investment and project delivery commitments are regularly reviewed and considered against the jurisdiction-wide, cross-sectoral infrastructure project pipeline and industry capacity forecasts.
0-5 years
Create a step change in infrastructure productivity by industrialising the sector.
5-10 years
Develop and implement infrastructure productivity roadmaps supported by adopting modern methods of construction, including design reuse, standardised design elements, earlier supply chain involvement, digitalisation, modularisation, prefabrication, offsite construction, frame agreements and bulk procurement.
5-10 years
Create a positive change culture by ensuring public sector project professionals are empowered and the organisation leadership is incentivized to be innovative and adopt best practices.
0-5 years
Create, embed and pursue sector-wide efficiencies by developing and implementing project processes, templates and assurance activities that prioritise industrialisation.
10-15 years
Ensure the industry is a sector of choice for employees and can meet current and future workforce demands by introducing cultural reform that embraces diversity and inclusion.
0-5 years
In partnership with industry, deliver a workforce attraction and retention strategy that navigates current workforce challenges and sets out tangible and achievable solutions that create a sector of choice for current and future talent.
5-10 years
Foster a new model of collaboration between governments and industry by developing and implementing an infrastructure industry culture commitment and industry policy aimed at improving project delivery.
5-10 years
Embed the infrastructure sector culture commitment through existing social procurement frameworks and pre-qualification schemes.
0-5 years
Improve the productivity and attractiveness of the sector by adopting and promoting a five-day working week, working hour limits, and job-sharing practices across the public and private sectors.
0-5 years