Manifestos should focus on prioritisation over proliferation when it comes to major projects

While the size of the Government Major Projects Portfolio (GMPP) has shrunk over recent years, it still contains 133 projects – with a combined cost of more than £442 billion. Realistically, this is too many to do well – especially as the portfolio is precariously full of sensitive and complex projects. GMPP comprises the “most complex and strategically significant projects and programmes across government”, and delivering all this work is a serious challenge for an already overstretched civil service.

Depending on the outcome of next week’s election, the GMPP could see sudden and significant changes, with some high-profile projects facing cancellation or substantial change. And then there are the many and varied new projects the parties are proposing. These often ambitious proposals risk overloading an already full plate.

Not every major project is a political football, but some are especially divisive

Projects in the GMPP tend not to draw much political attention unless they go wrong. None of the party manifestos have anything to say, for example, about the ongoing and largely successful £30bn programme to re-nationalise Sellafield nuclear waste management site, or the £17.2bn programme to implement smart energy meters across the UK.

However, when parties do diverge on major projects, they often become politicised. Universal Credit costs less than both of the above (£12.7bn) but has caused considerable controversy, with several parties promising to scrap the system. The Dreadnought-class submarine programme, which will see four new vessels built to carry Trident nuclear weapons at a cost of £30bn, is also hotly contested, by the Scottish National Party and Green Party in particular.

Runways and railway lines cause problems for all parties. HS2 is by far the most expensive project in the portfolio – and its listed cost of £55.7bn is almost certainly £15–20bn below the actual mark. This is a cost that the government has struggled to justify; and while the Conservative manifesto seeks to pass the issue onto the Oakervee review of the project, it seems unlikely that its findings will change anyone’s mind.

Similarly, £22.7bn has been earmarked to “enable delivery of a new Northwest runway at Heathrow”, following government approval in July 2016. This is a project that has always been driven by politics rather than evidence, and one that all the parties struggle to find much enthusiasm for when faced with voters.

Cutting or changing these programmes may meet short-term political goals. However, scrapping them will still cost money, and there are also the opportunity costs incurred by inaction.

Translating manifesto promises into actual projects will take hard work

Then there are the potential new projects. Labour’s promise of '30 hours of free preschool for 2–4 year olds' could end up looking a lot like the ‘30 hours of free childcare’ project, a manifesto promise made by the Conservatives in 2015. This was successfully delivered this year, two-and-a-half years later than planned and costing several billion more than projected. So far, so familiar, though; this is the sort of government transformation project that the civil service has experience of and knows how to manage.

Other projects in the manifestos look a lot more daunting. The Conservative proposal to introduce an ‘Australian-style points system’ for immigration would be of a far larger scale, adding new complexity on top of the ongoing challenges facing the Home Office. Then, most significantly, there is Brexit, which is a de-facto mega project in its own right.

The major projects in Labour’s manifesto promises present an extraordinary challenge

As for Labour’s other proposals, it seems that no idea is too big. Potential major projects include: creating a new generic drug company; establishing a ‘National Care Service’ and ‘National Education Service’; nationalising private prisons, energy production and railways; scrapping Universal Credit and setting up a replacement; building a new Crossrail for the North; and scrapping tuition fees.

This is a heady mix of major infrastructure and government transformation projects that speaks to a great ambition. But how much of it is deliverable, and when? Adding just one of the above would represent a substantial addition to the GMPP; adding more than that would be an extraordinary challenge.

The civil service does not have unlimited resources, and governments can’t buy their way out of every constraint. Simple things, like the availability of specialist expertise in areas such as policy development, project management, engineering and construction may be in short supply if a slew of new major projects are competing with each other at once.

Prioritisation is the key to success when it comes to major projects. But as the number and scale of proposals increases, this gets harder. Even if the government had a clear slate to work with (which it doesn’t), taking on so many huge and ambitious projects would be a massive challenge. Given how much work the government is already committed to, it would be a massive folly.