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Both economic infrastructure (roads, rail, energy, water, communications) and social infrastructure (schools, hospitals, housing) provide services that are essential to daily life and economic success. HM Treasury's National Infrastructure Plan has identified over £450 billion of planned investment in economic infrastructure that is needed to replace ageing assets, help meet policy commitments, and meet our growing population’s needs, over the next decade and beyond. Infrastructure takes years to build, and is generally long-lived, requiring a long-term public policy perspective.

Infrastructure is ultimately funded through taxes or through consumer bills and charges. The finance, however, can be raised either publicly or privately, with varying combinations of public and private financing being possible. We have an extensive back catalogue of reports following the evolution of the Private Finance Initiative. More recently we have reported on new forms of finance (infrastructure guarantees, Thames Tideway Tunnel) and the choices available to government over whether to use public or private finance, as well as the impact of infrastructure investment on consumer bills and whether bills will be affordable.

Key NAO publications: The choice of finance for capital investment (Mar 2015); Lessons from major rail infrastructure programmes (Oct 2014); Review of the VFM assessment process for PFI (Apr 2014); HM Treasury: Planning for economic infrastructure (Jan 2013); and Private Finance Projects (Nov 2009)