What lies beneath

The National Productivity Investment Fund is the invisible hand behind a number of major new funding schemes. Phil Ward explains what it is and how it fits together.

The funding landscape is a little like a garden at the height of summer. It does not appear to have a pattern, and most of the flowers seem unrelated. But if you spend longer in the garden and dig deep into the earth, you find that some of the plants share the same root system even though they sprout up in different places.

The National Productivity Investment Fund is one of the larger root systems. It may not be showy, but it is certainly vigorous. Most people who wander into the garden cannot see it or access it directly, but they can pick the flowers that sprout from the root system across the grounds.