I understand where people are coming from when they say ‘we should take the politics out of infrastructure’. Many large, potentially transformative projects chart a winding path through political cycles, while our ‘everyday’ infrastructure (local highways, utilities, public realm, for example) is subject to relentless budgetary pressures. It can feel impossible to build the infrastructure we need or even maintain the infrastructure we already have.

Exasperation with the policymaking process, and a preference to distance ourselves from it, is the logical response for some engineers. But for me, this underestimates our ability to shape the policy landscape, particularly at the local level. Rather than losing faith in policymaking, I think we should turn our attention to two things. One, actively contributing to the formulation of infrastructure policy, and two, using our skills to support government (particularly local government) in executing policy. The ICE also believes that policy makers really benefit from engineers who get involved beyond the professional circles of their own specialisms.

I believe that the way we can best achieve this is from the inside – I am a huge advocate for bringing the technical skills and private sector experience of engineers into the public sector. This is something I’ve experienced myself, taking two years out from my ‘normal’ life as a consulting civil engineer with my own small practice to work in-house at the Greater London Authority as part of its infrastructure team. My focus was on using the policy process to address a practical problem I had frequently encountered in my work on local authority-led regeneration in London – the difficulty in coordinating the various utilities needed to serve a new development in a timely and efficient way.

For a more systematic approach to bringing outside built environment expertise into the public sector, the non-profit organisation Public Practice provides an excellent example. By placing experienced professionals from architecture, planning, engineering and a range of other disciplines into a range of local government positions, the organisation seeks to strengthen the public sector’s placemaking capabilities and the ability of local government to plan for and build really high-quality places.

When we bring built environment professionals – including civil engineers – into the public sector, we bring more than simply their technical skills. We bring their experience across the project lifecycle, from planning through to construction and then maintenance. This is not only vital for designing and planning better infrastructure, it is invaluable in procuring it. I don’t think it’s too controversial to say that you can be a more effective client if you’ve previously been on the contractor side of the relationship. And in policy terms, who better to shape workable policy than those used to interpreting and implementing it?