Summary

• New Zealand’s central government investment assurance system is fragmented, inconsistent, and incomplete across planning, asset management, and project delivery.
• This increases the risk that poorly planned or low-value projects proceed while essential renewals and higher-value proposals miss out, and that decision-makers do not receive consistent, independent advice to inform funding decisions.
• The National Infrastructure Pipeline captures data on nearly 12,000 projects, including 44 projects with expected costs of more than $1 billion.
• We cannot afford to build everything in the Pipeline, making robust checks and balances essential for directing limited funds toward the highest-value and most deliverable projects.
• The Commission contributes to this through the Infrastructure Priorities Programme (IPP), which uses standardised criteria to assess strategic alignment, value for money, and deliverability.
• A growing number of organisations are submitting their projects to the IPP, though many proposals still overestimate their investment readiness or overlook low-cost and non-built options.
• Good planning is critical for successful project delivery. Many Budget bids in the last five years lacked complete business cases, or were missing adequate cost–benefit analysis, underscoring weak project preparation.
• To lift the bar on new investments and system performance, a consolidated investment assurance function should be established to bring together dispersed assurance activities, including Gateway reviews, asset management assurance, and pre-investment readiness assessments such as the IPP.
• There is also scope to strengthen the Pipeline. A stronger mandate and consistent information standards would improve its usefulness as a coordinating tool and enhance system-wide project data quality.