UK wasting ‘tens of billions’ on crumbling infrastructure and badly run projects

HS2 construction at Curzon Street in Birmingham. The NAO said Whitehall has a ‘governance problem’, exemplified by the costs of the high-speed rail project and new hospitals programme. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Britain is wasting tens of billions of pounds on badly run projects, cold war-era IT systems and crumbling, poorly maintained infrastructure, parliament’s spending watchdog will say on Tuesday.

Gareth Davies, the head of the National Audit Office (NAO), will argue the government could save vast sums if it addresses maintenance backlogs and replaces out-of-date IT.