Setting the Scene

Across Australia and New Zealand, the scale of public investment in infrastructure has never been greater. From transport corridors and renewable energy hubs to defence and digital transformation programs, governments are committing billions to major projects that will shape national prosperity for generations.

Yet the challenges are familiar — projects starting before they’re ready, scope creep, rising costs, governance complexity, bureaucracy and duplication, and the erosion of public trust.

A recent study by the UK’s Office for Value for Money (OVfM) offers valuable insights into how mega projects can be set up for success. While written for the UK, its lessons resonate deeply with the infrastructure landscape across Australasia.

Why We Struggle: The Systemic Issues

The OVfM report found that mega projects often fail not because of technical complexity, but because of how they are governed and funded.

In Australia and New Zealand, we see similar patterns:

• Projects pushed into delivery to meet political timelines rather than planning, procurement and project delivery readiness.
• Decision-making diluted across multiple agencies, governance forums and committees.
• Annual budgeting cycles that reward spending rather than delivery and are short term in nature.
• A lack of accountability and continuity as governments, executives, and advisors change.

When this happens, project teams spend more time managing process than delivering outcomes. Value for money suffers — not because people don’t care, but because the system itself works against project delivery success.

Learning from the UK’s Response

The UK government has introduced five reforms designed to fix these problems across all future projects. When viewed through an Australasian lens, they highlight five opportunities for our own governments, delivery partners, and major projects and alliances to evolve.

1. Start with a Strategy and Delivery Plan
Each UK mega project must now publish a concise ‘Strategy and Delivery Plan’ — a transparent blueprint outlining the project’s purpose, scope, cost, schedule, and risk mitigation approach.

For Australia and New Zealand, this could mean early alignment between ministers, agencies, and delivery partners, similar to how alliances establish a Project Alliance Agreement that clarifies outcomes, governance, and key result areas.

Transparency at the front end creates shared ownership — not just of the project’s objectives, but of the trade-offs required to achieve them.

2. Streamline Decision-Making
The UK is replacing layers of public service approvals with a Mega Projects Decision Panel empowered to make timely calls based on independent assurance.

Our equivalent opportunity lies in simplifying governance frameworks and empowering those closest to delivery — project leadership teams, project boards, and senior responsible owners — to make decisions within clearly defined delegations.

Speed of decision-making, backed by technical assurance, often determines whether a project stays on track or stalls in bureaucracy.

3. Fund Development in Stages
The UK now requires projects to progress through staged funding, tied to robust feasibility and risk reduction milestones.

Australasian agencies could adopt similar approaches by incrementally funding project development phases — ensuring projects only proceed to delivery once the commercial framework, design maturity, and market readiness are genuinely aligned.

This staged approach not only improves affordability but builds confidence in forecasts, reducing the need for mid-project resets.

4. Enable Budget Flexibility for Value
Instead of forcing projects to live within rigid annual budgets, the UK now allows money to move between years within a fixed capital envelope.

Australian and New Zealand governments could benefit from similar flexibility — especially in alliance and collaborative contracting environments where ‘no blame’ cultures and integrated teams can rapidly re-sequence work to deliver better value.

Budget flexibility enables innovation, rewards acceleration, and prevents the costly stop-start cycles that undermine efficiency and value for money.

5. Attract and Retain the Right People
The UK reforms also recognise that specialist expertise is scarce — and critical. Pay constraints are being lifted for key technical and leadership roles, supported by a new National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority talent pipeline.

For Australia and New Zealand, this reinforces the importance of investing in capability frameworks, commercial acumen training, succession planning and alliance leadership development — areas where BRS continues to support clients.

Without the right people in the right roles, even the best frameworks will fail.

What This Means for Australia and New Zealand

The common thread across all five reforms is trust — trust in people, in process, and in purpose.

Our region already leads the world in collaborative contracting through the alliance and other collaborative contracting model. The next evolution is applying these global insights to strengthen owner capability, simplify governance, and align funding frameworks so that collaboration delivers not just better relationships, but better results.

By combining the discipline of clear accountability with the freedom to innovate, Australia and New Zealand can lead the next global wave of mega project reform — delivering infrastructure that truly transforms communities and economies.

Conclusion: Turning Lessons into Leadership

Mega projects are national commitments, not political cycles. The OVfM study reminds us that successful delivery starts long before construction — in how we design, govern, and resource our programs.

As governments across Australasia embark on their next generation of infrastructure investments, there is an opportunity to embed these lessons into practice — creating projects that are not just delivered, but delivered well.

At BRS, we believe value for money is achieved when governance is clear, capability is built, and collaboration is genuine. The time has come to rebuild trust in how we deliver — and lead the world in how mega projects are done right.

Key Takeaways

• Governance and funding frameworks can make or break project success.
• Early alignment and transparent strategy plans create ownership and clarity.
• Decision-making speed is a competitive advantage.
• Budget flexibility and staged funding reduce waste.
• Capability and trust are the ultimate enablers of value for money.

How BRS Can Help

BRS partners with government and industry to:

• Develop governance frameworks, delivery strategies, procurement assistance and value-for-money strategies for major and mega projects.
• Build commercial acumen and leadership capability within owner teams.
• Support project alignment workshops to set up projects for success.
• Building high performance teams on large projects.

Our work across large projects, alliances, government agencies, and major contractors in Australia and New Zealand demonstrates one simple truth — when governance, culture, and capability align, great projects follow.

Visit www.brsresults.com to learn more about how we help owners, large projects and alliances deliver better infrastructure outcomes.