ICE

The State of the Nation: Defending critical infrastructure

Infrastructure is the backbone of the nation. It is our energy, transport, waste and water systems, and increasing numbers of individual assets are critical to the functioning of wider national networks. Infrastructure provides everything from power and clean water to motorways and airports. Without it our daily lives would be unrecognisable.

Download the full report now (pdf format) and summary report (pdf format).

Our critical infrastructure is now under greater threat than ever before. Events such as the London bombings in 2005 and the floods of summer 2007 exposed its potentially disastrous vulnerability, while the heavy snowfall of early 2009 which brought much of the country to a standstill raised questions as to why our systems were apparently so ill equipped to cope.

ICE has conducted an inquiry into the defence of the UK´s critical infrastructure. In the course of our investigation we gathered oral and written evidence from many major infrastructure asset owners, operators, agencies, service providers and civil engineering consultants and contractors.

The evidence submitted to ICE by these key industry players has allowed us to produce an independent in depth assessment of how effectively the UK ensures the resilience of its critical infrastructure.

This report addresses the main threats to our infrastructure: system failure, climate change and terrorism. It explains the current situation and sets out a list of major recommendations to improve the security of our critical infrastructure.

The government has taken some steps towards reducing the risks to infrastructure, such as the creation of a body to defend against terrorism, and the recent creation of another for natural hazards, but work remains piecemeal and more needs to be done. In order to increase the resilience of our infrastructure the network must be treated as a whole, requiring an overview function that recognises that the functionality of one asset is dependent on others.

We must close the gaps in our infrastructure defence system. In order to do this ICE recommends:

1. The establishment of a new single point of authority for infrastructure resilience to coordinate the work of the agencies responsible for defending our critical infrastructure against all threats.
2. That the newly created Natural Hazards Team is given the power to provide strong leadership to asset owners and ensure legislation is properly enforced.
3. That government revises the remit for sector regulators, such as Ofgem and Ofwat, to address asset resilience as well as consumer interests and empower them to ensure asset owners build in reserve capacity to critical infrastructure so they are prepared for any emergency scenario.
4. That government ensures that the new Planning Act and the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) effectively reform the planning system for major infrastructure.

Well defended critical infrastructure is central to the security and stability of the nation. The UK must take action now to improve the resilience of our critical infrastructure, or pay the economic, social and environmental price in the near future.

Download the full report now (pdf format) and summary report (pdf format) or use the links below to view individual sections of the report online:

• Introduction from Jean Venables, President of ICE
• Executive summary
• What is infrastructure?
• Consequences of failure
• Main threats
• Current situation - interdependency, the need for an overview, asset knowledge and maintenance funding
• Current situation - Planning, inadequate regulatory remit, lack of specific delivery bodies for all threats
• ICE recommendations

There are also three regional briefing sheets available to download in pdf format:

• East of England
• South West
• Wales (English)
• Wales (Cymru)

For more information, please contact ICE's press office on 020 7665 2104 or by email at communications@ice.org.uk