NR hardly gave themselves any credibility they could deliver big projects after the GW Electrification fiasco and that was just one project that got exposed. Almost every project is overspent and thats despite the vast army of support staff that the project function carry that good old BR managed to do with out. They have estimators, value management teams, risk management teams, project controls, planners often sourced from consultancies on day rates that will make your eyes water and they still couldn't keep control of projects (Crossrail was infected with the same ethos as well and many NR people migrated there and now have moved onto HS2).
The GRIP process facilitated this largesse and consigned getting things done to a secondary outcome so im delighted to see it consigned to the bin and replaced with something that should allow the railway spirit of getting things done to flourish again as well costing in less. Project Speed is just what is needed but it will take a while to change out the GRIP culture so Haines is right to target a few projects that showcase what the industry can do when it has the will.
You see the problem is, the government is always unwilling to put forwards money to solve these things. So industry tries to do everything it can to reduce costs, but ends up just spending a load of money on bean-counters, "competitive bidding", bureaucracy, etc. The constant feast/famine of funding is significantly worsening the situation too. Projects like HS2 have gone so over-budget because the DfT has been trying to put all the risk on bidders, who have then just shoved all their prices up, because many of these contractors haven't done a big project like this, at least in the UK for decades and there can be unexpected situations (aka COVID) that may extend construction time and cost, so they really can't guarantee a specific figure.
What needs to happen, is realistic timescales and cost expectations from the DfT itself. Be willing to put forwards a decent level of funding, over an extended period of time, with a good long term roadmap of what the railway should best look like to serve future needs.
What also doesn't help, is a general public who has no gauge for what things like this cost, who then have £100bn figures waved in their faces and are told this is some ungodly amount of money, when in reality, it is a lot, but it's pretty standard for these kinds of projects.
I'll give a good example, I asked some family how much they thought the Boeing 737 we had just flown on holiday on cost:
Some said half a million, some said a few million. None of them got close to the £80 million figure.
Most people just generally never see sums of money much more than five figures, which is reasonable when talking about individual or household finances. However, when you scale that up to an entire country, the sums of money become an entirely different ballpark. Even at £100bn, HS2 would chalk up to £1500 per person. Over ten years, that's £150 per year, for high speed rail and extra capacity on the existing network for a significant amount of the country. HS2 is designed to last for 120 years, so per year the cost to each individual after it opens is £12.80.
