The annual State of Infrastructure and Engagement Survey delivers insights about how stakeholder pressure, social licence, social risk and community engagement are influencing Australia’s infrastructure development.
Each year the State of Infrastructure and Engagement Project tracks infrastructure sector professionals’ experiences of a range of issues, including project status and budgets and the factors they identify as most influential to project outcomes. The survey also takes a deep dive into unique, priority issues each year. This year’s deep dive focuses on:
- Social inclusion
- social value
- community fatigue.
The 6th Annual State of Infrastructure and Engagement Report covers 2022-2023. It reveals an industry grappling with economic uncertainty and challenging project delivery environments. Although survey participants reported a slight improvement in on-time and on-budget project completions, project delays and cancellations continued to rise, thus, continuing the upward trend since 2018.
The sector continued to experience the influence of stakeholder and community pressure and social risks, while maintaining quality community engagement.
Respondents reported a strong belief that infrastructure development should contribute to social inclusion, including affordability, accessibility and gender equity.
On social value, most respondents agree that creating social value should be a key aim of all major infrastructure projects. Many also agree that a focus on social value improves stakeholder engagement and reduces stakeholder pressure or opposition.
The vast majority of respondents (86%) witnessed community fatigue on projects they have worked on and 84% state that it poses risks to project delivery, with 66% agreeing that community fatigue increases the likelihood of project delays. The majority of experts surveyed (80%) state that high quality engagement lowers the levels of fatigue in communities experiencing infrastructure delivery.
View our full findings of the latest, 6th Annual Survey, here.
Or watch the Results Presentation, here. (Zoom: KP7@W3^X )