Why do large infrastructure projects need a cabinet-level delivery agency?

Large-scale infrastructure projects often carry national strategic visions, but organizational fragmentation, talent gaps, and coordination costs in the delivery process frequently become bottlenecks. The UK government's recent push for a new towns plan—an ambitious project involving seven rapid-build communities—is facing similar governance challenges. During a hearing of the House of Lords Environment Committee, Juliano Denicol, Professor of Major Projects at University College London, pointed out that what is currently most lacking is a long-term institution with cabinet-level oversight authority to lead the delivery of the entire new towns project portfolio.

Denicol's proposal is not unfounded. A 2025 parliamentary group report explicitly stated that successful new towns in post-war Britain were often driven by public-led specialized agencies such as Development Corporations. However, for the current plan, the government is still evaluating multiple delivery models, including public-private legal partnerships. Denicol believes that dispersing project delivery to local development corporations overlooks the core capabilities required for cross-town coordination, supply chain standardization, and long-term strategic consistency. He warned, "Without an entity that can exist for 50 to 60 years and report to the cabinet, it will be difficult to coordinate funding across departments, experts from different fields, and infrastructure (schools, hospitals, transport, power grids, etc.)."

From an organizational strategy perspective, this call reveals a common dilemma: when the scale of a project exceeds the jurisdictional boundaries of a single department or local government, traditional bureaucratic hierarchies cannot effectively integrate resources. This is similar to the logic behind multinational corporations establishing a "Project Portfolio Management Office" (PMO) when dealing with multiple business units and regional markets. However, government projects often lack such corporate-style governance structures. Alexander Budzier, a management practice researcher at the University of Oxford's Saïd Business School, added during the hearing that the current "bottlenecks" in planning approvals mainly lie in local coordination and permitting processes. Citing the London Olympic Legacy Development Corporation as an example, he noted that temporarily granted centralized authority effectively eliminated these bottlenecks.

The talent issue further underscores the urgency of establishing a specialized institution. Jonathan Mitchell, Deputy Director of Skills England, had previously warned that construction skills shortages pose a "real risk" to the new towns plan. Denicol hit the nail on the head, pointing out that many large projects currently outsource key tasks to consultants, paying them 10 times the cost of in-house staff—because public sector salary caps cannot attract top talent. A high-level, long-term institution could establish a more competitive compensation system and cultivate cross-generational project management capabilities.This discussion has implications for large-scale infrastructure projects worldwide. Whether it is the Sydney Metro in Australia, the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor in India, or the infrastructure of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area in China, the design of governance structures often determines the ultimate success or failure of projects. Short-term, fragmented delivery models that rely on external consultants, while seemingly flexible, can easily lead to knowledge loss, rising coordination costs, and strategic deviation. Establishing a centralized, long-standing entity with cross-departmental coordination capabilities, despite political and administrative resistance, is a necessary investment to improve project success rates.

The case of British new towns once again reminds policymakers and business leaders: large and complex projects cannot rely solely on temporary agencies or market forces. A dedicated, sustained, high-level delivery organization is not only a technical necessity for project management but also an organizational guarantee for strategy implementation.