The threats of climate change, ageing infrastructure, and a tendency to focus on mega new builds at the expense of maintaining and replacing existing assets all combine to demand an evolution of approach to infrastructure management. This includes the need to recognise infrastructure maintenance requires appropriately skilled and trained professionals, writes David Jenkins.

Safeguarding workforce capacity and capability in infrastructure asset management is urgently required for the benefit of current and future generations.

Government funding of infrastructure could benefit from a radical re-examination. The recent Grattan Institute’s report, Potholes and Pitfalls: How to fix local roads, is sound. However, one fundamental element continues to receive insufficient emphasis – the human one. There is an urgent need to recruit, train and retain experienced personnel in infrastructure asset management.

To date, the dominant rhetoric for infrastructure has focused on additional funding for building new infrastructure and subsequent pipelines. Infrastructure Australia’s 2023 Infrastructure Australia Market Capacity report now references the need to increase the number of engineers, employ overseas-trained engineers and focus on skills and training.

Infrastructure asset managers typically come from engineering backgrounds – not all do. In addition, there continues to be a woeful under-emphasis on the immediate responsibility for maintaining current infrastructure assets, especially considering the insatiable appetite for new infrastructure projects. This must change.

In 2021, the Australian Local Government Association (ALGA) released the State of the Assets Report, which found that 10 per cent ($51bn) of community infrastructure assets are in poor condition. In addition, of the 67 per cent of councils who said they have asset management plans, only two-thirds had considered lifecycle forecasts in their financial plan. 

These findings reveal that despite increased investment in infrastructure, community assets have remained below legislated requirements. Put into context, the management of local roads on which we travel to work, the community buildings we access for services and the parks we visit for sport and recreation should have greater oversight coupled with a capability uplift.

Prioritising recruitment and training

Part of the solution is the need to re-prioritise the importance of recruitment, education, and training of infrastructure asset management professionals. 

Since 2009, the Australian local government has led the way with nationally consistent frameworks in asset management and financial planning and reporting. While each jurisdiction has variances, many strategic documents require a minimum 10-year planning period that encourages councils to strive for small ongoing operating surpluses based on accrual accounting principles. 

To achieve this, there must be national and robust auditing of long-term financial plans that account for the trade-offs on performance, cost, and risk as outlined in the asset management plan. The importance of aligning asset management plans with long-term financial objectives remains. There needs to be an understanding of infrastructure asset management across the whole organisation, from elected members to operators in the field. The importance of taking a ‘whole of life’ approach to managing infrastructure must be the dominant discourse. 

Nearly 90 per cent of Grattan’s survey respondents reported problems with personnel in the preceding 12-month period, with more than half of responding councils describing difficulty recruiting engineers, asset managers, and project managers – this adds up to a worrying paucity of professional expertise in the recruitment pool. 

At the same time, Engineers Australia has reported that only 50 per cent of qualified engineers born overseas and currently working in Australia are working as engineers. Upskilling overseas-trained infrastructure asset management engineers could go a long way to fulfilling the current skills shortage in local government engineering. If successful, this would deliver better financial outcomes for government spending and, with the right incentives, reduce the capacity burden in local government. 

Ring-fencing funding for education and placing an appropriate emphasis on maintenance and renewal, as well as new builds, is needed and will go a long way to tackling the fundamental challenges we face with infrastructure. We cannot afford to get this wrong, and unless we change our mindset, the consequences for future generations are dire as we will kick the same proverbial can down the same old road – and that road will be crumbling in front of our eyes.

*David Jenkins is CEO of IPWEA, the Peak association for the public works professionals across Australia and New Zealand. He has spoken at international conferences worldwide on infrastructure, including South Africa, the UK, Italy, and NZ and sits on the Board of the International Federation of Municipal Engineering.

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