CIVIL SERVANTS AND decision makers in the public service will have government backing to take much greater risks to get more homes, energy stations, public transport and water plants delivered, under new government reforms.

Public Expenditure and Infrastructure Minister Jack Chambers will outline to cabinet a new “risk appetite statement” for critical infrastructure.

It will permit greater risk being tolerated when it comes to the purchase of land before final approval for a project has been secured, or accepting risk of ligation in a project provided there is strong governance in place.

Back in May, the minister said “risk aversion is holding us back” and argued that the State needed to move away from a system dominated by “multiple layers of process” and excessive bureaucracy.

The minister has said there is evidence that a culture of risk aversion has emerged across the public sector, driven largely by concerns regarding legal challenges, planning and consenting complexity, reputational risk and cost escalation.

The government is of the view that excessive caution is contributing to project delay, higher costs and slower delivery of critical infrastructure, particularly in sectors such as water, transport and energy.

A report by the Accelerating Infrastructure Taskforce, which Chambers chairs, found delivery timelines for energy and transport projects have doubled over the past two decades.

Cabinet will be told today that this new “risk appetite statement” will recognise that, in some cases, investments may be made that do not ultimately proceed or do not deliver all intended benefits.

However, it is believed that telling civil servants to stop playing it safe will be justified if it supports faster delivery across the wider system as a whole.

The statement also expressly commits to supporting officials who, in line with the statement, take a more balanced and proportionate approach to risk in pursuit of faster delivery of critical infrastructure.

The next step is for individual departments, agencies and regulators with specific responsible for the delivery of water, transport and energy infrastructure to prepare their own sectoral risk appetite statements. 

Failure to reach civil service apprenticeship target 

Aside from risk-taking, the civil service will also feature in another cabinet memo today, from Higher Eduction Minister James Lawless. 

The minister will update the government on the conclusion of the Public Service Apprenticeship Plan (2023–2025) and the next phase of apprenticeship expansion across the public service.

Ministers will be told that while apprenticeship opportunities in the civil service have been expanded beyond traditional craft roles, its target of 750 annual registrations by 2025 was not achieved.

Lawless has written to all cabinet ministers seeking renewed efforts to increase apprentice recruitment across their sectors and help drive progress towards future public service apprenticeship targets.

Three new apprenticeships in Business and Operations, Social Care and Paramedicine launched in 2026, creating new pathways into careers across the civil service, healthcare and social care sectors.

These programmes are part of a wider expansion that has increased the total number of apprenticeships available nationally to 87.