The newly created National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority has published its first annual report. For the first time, the Government Major Projects Portfolio has been examined through the lens of this new centre-of-government body, bringing together the strategic foresight of the National Infrastructure Commission and the delivery oversight of the Infrastructure and Projects Authority.
It is a portfolio of extraordinary scale and significance. At the March 2025 snapshot, the GMPP consisted of 213 of the UK’s most complex and strategically significant initiatives, together worth £996bn in whole-life costs, spanning infrastructure, service transformation, defence, and digital.
These are the projects that underpin the country’s long-term economic, social, and environmental resilience including £6bn a year for safer hospital environments, £3bn a year to transform learning spaces in schools and colleges, £327bn in long-term defence capability, and the digital and service transformation projects designed to make government more responsive and connected
A baseline for ambition
The delivery confidence picture is mixed, as might be expected for a portfolio deliberately weighted towards complexity and innovation. Fourteen per cent of projects have a green delivery confidence assessment, meaning successful delivery appears highly likely. Over half (63%) are amber, meaning feasible, but with significant issues requiring management attention. And 15% are red, where delivery is currently unachievable without re-scoping or reassessment.
It would be a mistake to view these figures solely through the prism of “success” or “failure” though. Amber and even red ratings should not be considered terminal diagnoses. Rather they are a call to action, often reflecting the inherent uncertainty of early-stage projects and complex systems. As the report notes, projects can and do move from red to amber or green when challenges are addressed and capability is strengthened.
The real value of the annual report is not in labelling projects as succeeding or failing, like a school report; but in providing a clear, whole-of-government view of the portfolio’s health which is something that allows the centre to spot systemic risks, identify where intervention is most needed and align resources with priorities.
Why the centre matters
In our earlier writing on the centre of government, we have argued that the UK’s delivery challenge is not just about technical project management. It is about the ability of the centre – No.10, the Treasury and the Cabinet Office, to consistently connect political ambition, fiscal resources and delivery capability.
Too often, these elements are considered in isolation. Ambitious goals are set without a realistic sense of the skills, governance and supply chain capacity needed to deliver them. Budgets are allocated without clear visibility of whether the delivery system can absorb them. Delivery performance is monitored without reference to the political choices and trade-offs that set the direction in the first place.
NISTA’s creation is an opportunity to break this cycle. By uniting strategy and delivery expertise under one roof, the centre gains a platform to integrate purpose, pounds and people from day one.
From fragmentation to coherence
The UK is not alone in facing this challenge.
Australia’s National Reconstruction Fund releases investment only when fiscal impact, strategic fit, and delivery muscle are aligned: a discipline that forces alignment between political intent and operational capacity.
Canada’s Quality of Life Framework links the outcomes citizens care about most directly to budgeting and decision-making, ensuring that strategic priorities drive spending and delivery plans, not the other way around.
Both examples show what can happen when the centre treats strategy, resources and delivery as parts of the same conversation – something the UK has historically struggled to do.
NISTA’s portfolio-wide perspective allows it to play this role domestically. The infrastructure pipeline, for example, is potentially more than an industry engagement tool; it is a powerful sequencing instrument. By setting out what is coming, when, and at what scale, it should enable government to manage supply chain bottlenecks, avoid competition for scarce skills and coordinate across departments and regions.
The three capabilities that matter most
For NISTA to fulfil its potential as the delivery arm of the centre, three capabilities are paramount.
Strategic integration – Every project in the GMPP should have a clear line of sight to national strategy, with a delivery model and budget that reflect both fiscal realism and operational feasibility. This means resisting the temptation to approve politically attractive projects without a robust delivery case.
Whole-life governance – The centre must sustain delivery leadership and capability throughout the life of each programme. Leadership churn, shifting accountabilities and loss of institutional memory are among the most consistent causes of delay and cost escalation.
Learning at pace – The government has pockets of excellence in project delivery, but lessons are too often siloed within departments. NISTA’s assurance role should be about accelerating cross-government learning, so that what is discovered in one programme can inform others immediately.
From data to decisions
The annual report’s DCA data gives the centre an informed starting point. The real test is whether this information is used to drive portfolio-level decisions, such as:
- Adjusting priorities when capacity is stretched or when risks cluster in a single delivery phase.
- Sequencing projects to smooth demand on critical skills, suppliers and enabling infrastructure.
- Reinforcing capability in departments whose projects consistently face similar challenges.
- Protecting frontline insight by involving delivery leaders and service users in programme design from inception.
Here, NISTA’s integration into the heart of government matters. It must be able to feed insights directly into fiscal planning and policy design, ensuring that ambition is matched by the means to deliver.
A forward agenda for NISTA
If NISTA is to be more than an annual reporting function, it should adopt a proactive agenda. It should embed portfolio management discipline across all departments, aligned to the Government Project Delivery Functional Standard. Alongside this it should introduce strategic gateways where projects are assessed for strategic fit, resource alignment, and delivery readiness before progressing. NISTA must also develop a multidisciplinary cross-government talent pool for complex project leadership, with incentives to retain expertise through the life of programmes, and provide support for ministers, Commons committee chairs and backbench MPs to understand the nuances and challenges of complex delivery from the centre of government
Nista can also pilot adaptive delivery models that allow for iteration and adjustment, without costly resets and interventions, and institutionalise post-project learning so that exit reviews are mandatory and feed into live programmes Finally the new body should strengthen regional and industry partnerships so that local delivery realities and market capacity shape national programme design.
The opportunity ahead
The GMPP will always contain projects that are large, complex and high risk. But with a centre that consistently aligns purpose to pounds, and pounds to people’s lives, the odds of success improve dramatically.
NISTA’s first annual report should not just be seen as an audit of the portfolio’s current state. It is an invitation to rethink how the centre leads, enabling a shift from episodic reform to sustained transformation. The £996bn pipeline it oversees is more than a set of projects; it is the architecture of Britain’s future prosperity, resilience and public value.
If the centre uses NISTA not only to monitor progress but to shape priorities, strengthen capability, and learn at pace, then this portfolio can be delivered with ambition matched by realism. And that, as with Starmer’s missions, is the hallmark of a strategic state.
Patrick Diamond is professor of public policy at Queen Mary University of London and a former head of policy planning in No.10. Vijay K. Luthra is a public service transformation specialist and former civil servant, local government councillor, school governor and NHS NED