I’m pleased to announce that the TIES Living Lab project has officially wrapped up, and we’re holding an event on 16th July in London to launch the final report, book your space here. This transformative collaboration of 25 partners, including government departments, academia, and businesses, focused on showcasing the ways digital technologies can be used to enhance productivity in transport construction and infrastructure schemes. I encourage you all to attend to consider next steps and share knowledge on how to improve productivity in the transport industry.
The Living Lab directly aligns with the government’s broader productivity strategy, particularly through the work of the new National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA). NISTA aims to enhance productivity in UK infrastructure delivery by uniting long-term strategy with best-practice project delivery, which includes increasing the use of digital technologies.
It’s clear that rail needs to accelerate its digital transformation. This delay often stems from leaders having other immediate priorities, but increasing digitalisation is about empowering leaders to be competent and confident in leading digital changes within their own organisations. It is vital that rail industry leaders understand how to leverage these digital tools.
To address this, NSAR is committed to accelerating the deployment of digital technologies and AI. We are developing a digital competency service specifically designed to address the leadership competencies needed to identify, procure and realise the value from digital technologies. This initiative is a key part of our refreshed NSAR strategy, and we are working with Richard Postance on this, given his valuable background at one of the largest software companies. Keep an eye out for more news on this development shortly.
June was also an eventful month for the rail industry in terms of policy, with the government unveiling its Spending Review, Industrial Strategy, and Infrastructure Strategy. While we identified substantial missed opportunities, particularly regarding rail’s prominence within the Industrial Strategy, there were also notable positive outcomes. Crucially, all major rail projects in the pipeline received continued commitment, which is a substantial positive given the prevailing fiscal climate. This good news was further strengthened by welcome reforms to public procurement and the Treasury Green Book. For a full analysis of these developments, please see the detailed briefings available on the website.