The Consortium has established a Critical Friends Overview Group.  This group is made up of people not directly involved as providers of infrastructure services but who have a good understanding of the sector, its needs and issues and the infrastructure which serves it.

The Critical Friends were initially charged with scrutinising the deliberations, thinking and ultimately the recommendations of the Consortium and its working groups.  One aim was to secure Best Value for user groups.    In particular the Group was asked to make constructive challenges around conflicts of interest and other sensitive issues such as duplication, economies of scale and quality.

Its role was to:

Ask the “naïve” questions and challenge the assumptions the Consortium and particularly the Co-ordinating Group’s thinking and work is based upon.

Think “outside the box” and offer different scenarios to the proposals or ideas generated through the Consortium

Champion the interests of groups which use, or could use, infrastructure services

Test proposals and ideas coming from the Consortium in terms of 

• Value for Money and cost effectiveness
• Quality of provision
• Responsiveness and appropriateness to user groups needs
• Effectiveness of delivery structures, systems and models

We believe the group has a continuing role in commenting and criticising our progress as we implement the Infrastructure Investment Plan - further details will be included here.

If you would like to comment or assist in this way, please contact us via our feedback form.