Time to deliver: how alliancing can unblock the building and renewal of Britain’s infrastructure

The case is well established, the policy environment has caught up and tools are available. What remains is the willingness to apply these principles, say Jason Russell transportation advisory, at AtkinsRéalis. and Jacqui Archer  commercial director at Aecom.

The recently published 10-year infrastructure strategy confirms the government’s strong ambitions for infrastructure investment as a catalyst for economic growth and social, environmental and community outcomes. Yet this ambition must go hand-in-hand with a shift towards greater delivery performance to achieve the best possible outcomes for projects and communities across the country.

Escalating costs, tight fiscal constraints and supply chain disruption are rendering the delivery of major programmes harder than ever. Even where commitment and funding remain strong, delivery portfolios have repeatedly been exposed to cost overruns, schedule delays and runaway risks.

In this environment, delivery models are central to the discussion. Those that align diverse expertise, manage risk intelligently, unlock specialist supply chains, and adapt to evolving complexity are now essential. That’s why collaborative alliancing approaches are increasingly seen not as experiments, but as the contractual model whose time has come.

The difficult choreography of delivery

The scale of delivery risk is well established. Mace’s Future of Major Programme Delivery report published this year found that 11% of major programmes are at risk of significant delay or cancellation – despite record investment levels, delivering projects on time, on budget and with intended benefits is still a challenge.

This is not a new problem. Decades of delivery have shown how poor contracting and misaligned incentives erode value against projects’ original objectives. A 2023 study by World Commerce and Contracting found that poor practices cause 8.6% of value erosion—mostly during delivery.

Despite years of reform effort, and the many positive examples of successful delivery and outcomes, poor practices remain commonplace in many markets, and can be amplified by geopolitical uncertainty and lack of trust.

The art of managing risk

 The hard truth is that, when things get complex and interdependent, traditional contracts just do not work. Alliancing offers an alternative: a flexible commercial model specifically designed to balance and control the scale of complexity, reduce uncertainty and unlock value through collaboration.

Early engagement brings in expertise where it adds most value, while cost transparency enables teams to adapt to change. The mindset shifts from “what’s best for my bit?” to “what best serves the whole?”.

This fosters trust and transparency and enables greater productivity: better early-stage planning can deliver up to 20% in cost efficiencies and 10-15% faster delivery, enhanced further by increased use of data and technology.

In the UK context, alliancing also supports broader value-based outcomes: resilient supply chains, responsible public spending, workforce wellbeing, environmental stewardship, and local economic empowerment, aligned to the place-based principles that have risen to the fore.

The strength of the gold standard

These aren’t theoretical, untested benefits. They have been demonstrated by a growing number of UK projects over many years.David Mosey’s Constructing the Gold Standard provided clear recommendations for embedding alliancing principles and the Construction Playbook into public sector delivery, translating collaborative intent into systems, processes and actions.

It features evidence from major UK initiatives such as Anglian Water’s @One Alliance, Network Rail’s Stafford Area Improvement Programme, and the Ministry of Justice’s new prisons infrastructure programme—demonstrating how integrated models drive better outcomes, even in complex conditions.

Barry Hooper, former chief commercial officer at the Ministry of Justice, who led the use of the Construction Playbook, said: “The MoJ’s alliance framework proved that, when we unite around a clear vision and the right team, we don’t just build infrastructure, we build opportunity. By embracing repeatable design, manufacturing-led principles and modern construction methods, we accelerated delivery while embedding innovation.

“But the true measure of success lies beyond speed; in the apprenticeships created, the investment in SMEs, the carbon and waste we eliminated and the communities we uplifted. Through collaboration, we didn’t just construct buildings – we created lasting social value.”

Crucially, Constructing the Gold Standard recognises that success depends not just on contract form, but on joint leadership, supportive culture and long-term pipeline certainty to encourage investment.

From exception to rule

The gold standard collaborative models are already thoroughly tested. What has been missing has been the wider enabling environment, which is now really taking shape. The Public Procurement Act 2023 provides a more flexible legal foundation for collaborative delivery.

With its focus on outcomes, public benefit and whole-life value, it enables clients to engage early with markets and shape delivery models around the complexity and interdependence of real-world projects. The earlier partnerships are established and terms and goals agreed - the greater the productivity, efficiencies, social outcomes and the better the behaviours and culture at the heart of a project.

Still, the hardest challenges remain. Alliancing can help to meet those challenges as it demands a fundamental rethink of how clients approach control, risk and accountability. It requires early engagement, long-term pipeline visibility, and genuine openness to integrating supply chain expertise.

Incentives must be flexible enough to evolve with programme complexity—rewarding outcomes that create lasting social and environmental value, not just compliance. And above all, it requires leadership committed to seeding programmes with champions who will sustain collaboration, especially when pressure mounts.

The window won’t stay open long

The UK’s infrastructure agenda has momentum, and the creation of National Infrastructure Systems Transformation Authority (NISTA) provides a much-needed national centre of best practice to embed standards and strengthen capabilities. But political and public support will remain conditional on delivery credibility.

The next wave of public investment will be judged not just by intent, but by whether promised projects are delivered – on time, on budget, and with meaningful outcomes.

Alliancing gives government and delivery partners the best chance of meeting that test. Properly implemented, it provides stronger tools to manage complexity, integrate diverse expertise, protect public value, and adapt under pressure.

The case for alliancing is well established, the policy environment has caught up, and tools are available. What remains is the willingness to apply these principles. Not because it is easy, but because it is the only model resilient enough for the challenges that lie ahead.

This article first appeared in Building Magazine in August 2025 - Time to deliver: how alliancing can unblock the building and renewal of Britain’s infrastructure