Guest post by Paul Wilkinson of pwcom.co.uk

The inaugural meeting of Constructing Excellence’s social media task group was held in London on 11 October, with participation by CE members from across the UK, from public and private sector, from clients through to materials suppliers (helping underline the breadth of the CE movement). A date for a second meeting is in the process of being confirmed.

At the first meeting, I used a presentation (link) giving an overview of social media trends and a guide to the main tools. With Twitter, Facebook and blogs now widely used across television and other media, including our specialist publications in the built environment, I explained how we now have more tools in our communications toolbox. The CE social media task group aims to collate knowledge and experience in using the various tools and techniques to:

• share knowledge and provide guidance across CE about best practice in using social tools and technologies
• widen involvement in CE activities and events (from local clubs to national networks such as G4C)
• improve access to and dissemination of content from CE activities and events (the CE website is to be upgraded to provide more opportunity for two-way discussion too), and
• help members across the movement connect with counterparts who share similar interests (eg: on other issues such as sustainability, BIM, nuclear, infrastructure, etc)

If you would like to come to the next SM task group meeting (or if you cannot attend but would like to be kept informed), please email colm.quinn@constructingexcellence.org.uk, and we would welcome ideas for subjects that people might like to discuss at the meeting. Wikipedia (and other wikis) is one possible topic, and, if time, technology and know-how allow, we may even try to take the session online.

So consider this a farewell message. Having been at Constructing Excellence for nearly nine years I’ve seen tremendous change in our sector. The industry, and how clients approach it, has changed for the better in pockets. Certainly now, central Government is a much better procurer than at any other time that I can remember. Local Government performance is, well, let’s say patchy.

Leaving CE gives me an opportunity to raise some of the things that I believe are still an issue. So, typical disclaimer, these are my views not those of the organisation but here are ten things I would like to see change.

Government

Make your minds up on domestic retrofit

We’ve got a national target to reduce carbon by 80% by 2050. Domestic buildings are responsible for around 25% of carbon emissions. Of the buildings that will exist in 2050 at least 70% exist now. That includes rows and rows of old, typically energy inefficient homes. Some sort of programme to improve the energy efficiency of homes is absolutely necessary. So far, so obvious.

Government has talked a good game – Feed in Tariffs, Eco, Green Deal. But the actions of Government have, so far, entirely undermined the market. We’ve been involved in delivering a retrofit business support programme in London and it’s clear that the SME sector has no confidence that any of the retrofit market (which has been estimated as having a potential value of £14bn) will trickle its way down to them. Green Deal is a fabulous idea but it’s structured in such a way that will only undermine consumer confidence. What kind of independent assessment will take place when the independent assessor is appointed by a party with a financial interest in the results? And what were they thinking when the interest rate for the Green Deal loan was set at around 7%? When consumers can get a far better loan interest rate after five minutes on something like moneysupemarket.com then you know things are screwy.

If the intention is to cut domestic carbon emissions then back it up with policy that works; the sort of thing that our friends at UK-GBC campaigned for in their Pay As You Save work in the first place.

Stop reinventing support structures

A plea to Government – where industry is doing something and doing it well, don’t then set up something new on the same theme. Work with, influence the debate and direction of travel but don’t try to own. All that then happens is that, when Government steps away, as it inevitably does, all that is left is a vacuum.

Does, for example, Government need to fund a measurement group for the Green Construction Board when the UK-GBC has had a successful measurement group? Is a Government funded group considering export opportunities for UK companies and international best practice really necessary when CE International already exists with just that purpose?

Where industry is funding something, get involved in that – it’s far more likely to provide a sustainable legacy.

Localism? Really?

Ah, localism. The unwanted stepchild of Government policy. Maybe this is my failing but I really can’t tell you what localism means for construction. Is it what was suggested during the election – that local people can take control of public services and therefore responsibility for construction procurement? (Because what we really need are more clients that don’t understand how to buy built assets). I don’t think that’s what Government means by localism as none of its strategic actions in the Government Construction Strategy suggest that’s the case. If anything procurement is being more centralised.

Is localism just a drive to ensure local SMEs are used in supply chains and local people are given employment opportunities so that spending can be recycled in the local economy? I don’t think that’s what Government means by localism as it’s simply not new policy - public sector clients have been able to set such requirements for as long as I can remember.

Is localism the freedom for local authorities to procure in the way they want? I don’t think that’s what Government means by localism as that freedom generally already exists.

If none of these things are localism, then what is localism? Please, somebody, enlighten me.

And localism brings us on to…

Why accept poor use of public money?

The Government Construction Strategy is great. CE could have written it, so embedded is the integration and collaborative working agenda. The Strategy demonstrates that central Government clients understand how to drive value through construction procurement and are committed to doing so over the life of this Parliament.

And that’s great. But central Government only accounts for around 40% of total public sector construction spend. Government has always shied away from requiring local authorities and other clients that receive public money to behave in a particular way. But if there is such a great recognition that one way of approaching the market delivers value and another way madness lies, then surely conditions can be attached to public money to ensure that good practice approaches to procurement are used.

There have been many attempts to gently encourage local authorities and social landlords and these have had some success but ultimately have not had sufficient traction to change behaviours. Local authority procurement is mixed. Some local authority clients are brilliant – Birmingham and Manchester City Councils for example. But lots use rubbish traditional tendering. If gentle persuasion isn’t going to work then just find a way to force the right behaviours. Otherwise built assets will continue to be bought like paperclips.

Stop thinking that investment in long-term infrastructure will create jobs now

The UKCG did a great job in the LEK report at demonstrating the value of construction, especially in how it drives employment. And as an industry we’ve done very well at showing how important long-term investment in UK infrastructure is. But, Government seems to confuse two things. Investment in infrastructure is vital for continued UK competitiveness but it won’t necessarily drive short-term employment. For this you need to invest in social infrastructure projects, i.e. schools, hospitals. Both things are important. Right now we haven’t quite got the balance right. 

Clients

Enough with the frameworks already

No, really, please. Frameworks are great. I love frameworks. When they’re properly structured to give SMEs a chance and properly performance managed to drive improvement and, basically, not just a lazy way of avoiding going to OJEU for four years. But clients, you don’t all need a framework.

Right now it seems that it’s de rigeur for clients, especially those in local government and social housing, to set up a framework and go to great lengths to ensure that everyone can use it. Clients then have a dizzying array of frameworks through which they can procure.

What does this cause? Massive wasted effort from client teams, a huge amount of wasted bidding effort from suppliers and then subsequent disappointment when the expected quantity of work isn’t put through a framework as there are so many competing for clients’ favour.

Someone needs to map the existing frameworks, see where they overlap and come up with a plan for future consolidation. CE would be up for doing that if someone wants to talk to us about it.

The quality score fallacy

How many times have I heard this:
“We let it purely on lowest price as we knew that the quality scores for the bidders would be about the same.”

My response – “You’re asking the wrong questions.”

Seriously, we keep hearing that this industry is different. Some sort of particularist approach is required to get best value. If that really is the case then structure quality-based assessments so they give weight to those things that are important to you as a client. And work out what those things are early and tell everyone so, if they apply to you, you don’t make a mess of European procurement rules.

It’s ok to be dumb

We hear a lot nowadays about ‘the intelligent client’. And that’s great. As many clients as possible should be intelligent. But let’s face it, that’s just not plausible for the vast majority of organisations that buy construction.

So, if you don’t have the capacity/capability to have an intelligent client function as part of your organisations what should you do? Well, the worst thing you can do is to behave like you know what you’re doing.

For a start, don’t produce a detailed input based specification – all you’ll do is lock out potential innovation. No – in this case an outcome-based specification will be better. Let the supply side respond and see what they come up with.

And, get external advice. Of course, that includes consultants. But, actually, regular clients are more than happy to help those that only procure occasionally. Get in touch with the Construction Clients’ Group. Some excellent construction procurers are there to help you.
 
Industry

No, really, integrate you bastards

I love that Paul Morrell did a presentation called ‘Integrate You Bastards’. Nothing more awesome than that in the last few years. But, basically, the industry still gives lip service to the whole idea. Payment terms are still rubbish and contractors regularly procure down the supply chain by lowest cost rather than by value.

Worst still is the tendency for exploitation by integration. Contractors still get ‘partners’ in at an early stage to input into discussions on design and buildability, take their ideas before letting the whole package on a lowest price basis. Until we get to a stage where those that innovate are fairly recompensed for their ideas, either through guarantees of work or payments as consultants, the whole idea of real integration is hollow.

Polyphonic Spree

CE is an industry body. There are about 300 industry bodies in all. Of those, many claim to ‘represent the industry’. They don’t. And what happens is that they all compete for attention and importance to the extent that actually they are all undermined.

As an industry we agree about 80% of things that affect us. But generally when we get together we concentrate on the 20%. And all Government sees is an industry divided.

So, let’s not try to speak one voice, let’s try to be a choir. As an industry that is responsible for around 8% of GDP we deserve more attention from Government, but we won’t achieve this is if we can’t at least to sing in harmony.

Constructing Excellence

You know what, Constructing Excellence is one of the best things to ever happen to our industry. I’m sure that, if it weren’t for CE’s work, central Government wouldn’t have moved towards integrated working to such a great extent.

CE relies on industry support. I can conceive of no good reason why an organisation would not want to be part of the Constructing Excellence movement. So, come on everyone, especially those of you that have profited from positioning yourselves as an organisation that believes in integration, come and get involved.

It is with disappointment that we greet the news that Site Waste Management Plan legislation is due to be scrapped as part of Government’s Red Tape Challenge.

According to figures from the Constructing Excellence KPIs, construction waste has been cut by a third since the legislation came into place in 2008. Although a number of companies had understood the business benefits of better managing waste prior to the legislation, this good practice, as industry performance figures demonstrated, was by no means widespread. The 2008 act essentially forced companies to consider how waste would be disposed of. Put simply the legislation was required as there was a market failure. Since then WRAP has launched its excellent Halving Waste to Landfill campaign which has seen leading-edge companies commit to making substantial improvements in their waste performance.

I understand the Defra argument in scrapping the legislation. Their view is that better site waste management is about better business and it’s not Government’s role to get businesses to make better decisions. If site waste only had an economic impact then I would have sympathy with this view but clearly that isn’t the case. Our construction market has in many cases lagged behind some of our European peers in how it considers aspects of environmental sustainability, including waste. The legislation provided an impetus for companies to better manage waste thereby having both economic and environmental benefits. While Government won’t legislate for the former it can and should for the latter.

The other argument is that the legislation has done its job - Site Waste Management Plans are now a normal part of project delivery having had them mandated for four years. The expectation is that Plans will continue to be created even when there is not legislation that requires them. I’m not sure this is the case. Many companies in our sector understand the link between environmental and economic performance – they get that managing waste properly is a benefit not a cost. But in these difficult economic times there will be swathes of the industry that see this Government roll back as an opportunity to go backwards themselves. Clearly, the positioning here is important as well. What kind of message does it send industry if the ‘greenest Government ever’ decides that Site Waste Management Plans are no longer necessary?

The Site Waste Management Plan legislation wasn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination. And there were substantial issues around enforcement. But in our opinion that meant that the legislation needed to be improved and maybe the scope of the Plans to be widened to consider resource efficiency rather than just waste.

We at Constructing Excellence think this is a retrograde step and that the Government has sacrificed legislation where there is still risk of market failure to drive deregulation. The scrapping of the legislation is too much too soon. We will commit to working with industry to ensure that site waste good practice continues to be highlighted. As such we commit to:
• Continuing to collect data on site waste as part of the KPI data collection process. We can then demonstrate any changes in industry performance as a result of the scrapping of the legislation (just as we were able to show improvements following its introduction)
• Urge the few Constructing Excellence members that are yet to do so to sign up to WRAP’s Halving Waste to Landfill campaign
• Refresh the links to site waste best practice on the Constructing Excellence website
• Work with other bodies including BRE, WRAP and UK-GBC to understand how the industry thinks this should be taken forward

The challenge of the low carbon target the UK has set itself to achieve by 2050 is tough and the built environment sector has one of the biggest tasks of all if the target is to be achieved.

It’s a great opportunity, of course, for every part of the construction sector; from the architects and planners to the builders, plumbers, heating engineers and electricians. Not surprisingly, people have piled in with sustainable construction solutions for new build and retrofit, but which is snake oil and which ‘eureka’?

Right now, there’s a lot of work going on to measure what works and what doesn’t by, among others, the Technology Strategy Board.

This knowledge is beginning to emerge but getting it to the right people at the sharp end of the industry, especially those thousands of smaller firms who will probably do much of the retrofit work, is the next challenge.

That’s what the FLASH+ programme, led by the Institute for Sustainability, aims to do. FLASH+ is managed by the South East Centre for the Built Environment (SECBE), which is organising a programme of knowledge sharing events – conferences, workshops and site visits - to spread the best available knowledge to help smaller businesses in the sector to grab their share of a growing market.

Places are limited; there’s only capacity on this FREE programme for 250 South East companies. Don’t delay – to find out more visit http://www.secbe.org.uk/flashplus

*The FLASH + project is part-financed by the South East European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) Competitiveness Programme 2007-13, with the aim of promoting sustainable production and consumption whilst helping to reduce the South East ecological footprint.

The Twitterverse has been abuzz today with publication of the TCN Top 100. The aim was to produce, in league table format, a ranking of those that demonstrate the most influence across the built environment sector through use of Twitter. The list was organised by the good folk at The Construction Network using the Peer Index engine and was published today in Construction News.

At Constructing Excellence we’ve had a long-standing interest in social media. We were the first membership body in the sector to start using Twitter as a communication tool and have recently delivered a social media symposium to help our members understand how to use web 2.0 not only for marketing but also to deliver projects better.

While I commend the idea I’m afraid that I have significant concerns about the methodology that has reached the results that have been published today. Partially, I’m incredibly surprised that Constructing Excellence wasn’t included in the list. One of our key strengths is our influence. We engage on Twitter a reasonable amount. It is actually quite damaging to our brand to suggest that we’re not particularly influential and to, by omission, publish this within the national trade press. However, the main impetus for this post isn’t to express my (very real) frustration that Constructing Excellence isn’t in the Top 100 but to express concerns with the entire methodology.

In fact, I would suggest that the TCN Top 100 is not a measure of influence in the built environment sector; the calculation methodology that produced the results seems to be broken. Some of these issues are down to Peer Index calculation methodology; some are down to the way in which the Top 100 itself was calculated. Some of my concerns are below:

1) While the TCN Top 100 is meant to be a measure of influence in a particular sector, what has been published is actually a simple league table of Peer Index scores. Peer Index scores take into account all tweets, be they related to the built environment sector or not. So, within the Top 100 are actually a number of Twitter users that only engage with built environment issues occasionally but place quite highly because they have derived a strong Peer Index score.

Furthermore, quite a lot of the tweeters also use Twitter as a means of social communication. Again, Peer Index scores reflect these tweets as well. In some cases those within the Top 100 have not tweeted anything at all on the built environment sector in literally months. For the TCN Top 100 to be considered as a serious measure of influence on the built environment sector then surely only tweets related to the sector should be considered. Otherwise, you’re asking those serious built environment Tweeters to compete against those that comment on marketing and IT and football and making omelettes. Without that filtering the results are meaningless. In fact, because Twitter is a social medium one could also argue that Peer Index positively rewards those that Tweet on social activities.

2) The issue above relates to the wholesale use of Peer Index scores. Now let’s look at Peer Index itself. Peer Index calculates its scores from three sub-measures – authority, audience and activity. The ways in which audience and activity are measured seem reasonably sensible. Authority appears not to work at all.

Peer Index states that it builds up an ‘authority finger print on a category-by-category level using eight benchmark topics’. This totally fails to reflect the way we think about authority in our daily lives. Authority, by its nature, is specific but Peer Index uses eight areas as diverse as sport, leisure and lifestyle, health and finance to calculate its authority total. Quite simply it rewards generalists not real authorities.

The authority score also seems to reward the posting of links. Therefore, those that signpost content on others’ websites will score better than those that post original thought directly onto Twitter. Again, this does not reflect the way we think about authority. Real authorities aren’t those that simply regurgitate others’ ideas – they are those that form the debate in the first place.

3) The Top 5 benchmark topics for any Twitter user are published. These are a nonsense. Peer Index suggests that Constructing Excellence’s top five Twitter topics are sustainability, architecture and loudspeakers. Yes, seriously, loudspeakers. We’ve never once tweeted on that topic. At no point does it suggest that our top topics should include the built environment or construction or BIM or collaborative working or any of the other significant issues that we comment on. Shouldn’t users be able to define their own top topics?

So, as stated above, while we commend the intention behind the TCN Top 100, the delivery has been so flawed that it renders the results meaningless. This may seem trivial but for an organisation which trades on authority and knowledge it could be perceived as quite damaging.

Who are the tweeters that most influence the built environment sector? Here are five I would urge you to follow:
Grant Shapps, Minister of State for Housing and Local Government (@grantshapps)
UK Green Building Council (@ukgbc)
Graham Watts, Chief Executive of the Construction Industry Council (@CICCEO)
Noble Francis, Economics Director of the Construction Products Association (@NobleFrancis)
Federation of Master Builders (@fmbuilders)

So, follow those people. And I say that with authority.

All members of our Japan study tour are safely back in the UK. The last three days of the Japan study tour were extraordinary, and of course the full horror is still unfurling of the impact of the tsunami including on the nuclear power station at Fukushima. Events and emotions for us went something like this:

We finished our study tour at lunchtime on the Friday. The week had included visits up north to nuclear power stations under construction as well as meetings in Tokyo with many of the big contractors – including a fascinating visit to Shimizu’s research institute to see their latest earthquake-resistant buildings, very impressive. We had the afternoon off to see some sights or buy presents, and the party split up into smaller groups.

At 2.56, I was in my hotel room, with the TV on to enable an internet connection. A blaring sound came out of the TV and a red notice appeared on the screen, in Japanese. This awful sound is seared on my mind for ever more – it is the earthquake warning, and it comes about 30 seconds in advance of every earthquake of any size….. At first, it was terrifying - the 6th strongest earthquake ever and Japan’s biggest, 800 times more powerful than the Christchurch one - I was on the 10th floor of our hotel and it was like being on a small boat in mountainous seas, I eventually ran down the fire escape and got out to the street to watch the buildings swaying by 15 feet or more. The quake lasted some 7 minutes. It transpires that the island of Japan moved by 6 feet…???!!!! Elsewhere, one of our group saw cars lifted off the ground, and Jenefer from Balfour Beatty Vinci had the wit to film a temple shaking. People went back inside after half an hour or so, and I collected some stuff from my room, but the next hour saw six ‘after-shocks’ all stronger than Christchurch, so it was no fun at all and I soon went back outside. At last I found one of our tour party, and we went for a coffee and then to the hotel bar.

Next it was blitz-like, as we regrouped. Half found our way to the hotel bar within 1-2 hours, but the others had to hike 10 miles or more via the British embassy for a recovery halt. Others had been in meetings downtown, 3 of them even carried on with a meeting (?!) and so found themselves under tables during aftershocks. We began to think about a recovery plan as Tokyo became gridlocked and all planes, trains and buses ceased to run. We had been due to fly home the next morning, but it soon became apparent that all flights were cancelled or delayed. Black humour pervaded.

Then there was the horror and shock as we watched the impact of the tsunami on Japan’s eastern coast via the gripping live news coverage live on TV in the hotel bar, for many hours. This shock continues as we see more and more of the coverage now we are back in the UK.

Next it was impressive as we watched Tokyo stoically return to business as usual. Many office workers had not been able to get home so had slept in their offices. We saw that the city was virtually unscathed by such a huge tremor and the 200 after-shocks over the next 2 days, which continued to un-nerve many of us. Some of us decided to stay on the ground floor, and we set up a camp. Some went upstairs to sleep at one point, but then another big quake at 4am brought 7 of us back down to the ground floor and there we stayed until the morning.

The next morning the gridlock eased and the airports re-opened, so many of our party decided to head for the airport. Information about flight times was available, but unclear, and the journey for many was grim, 8 hours in a taxi and then 24 hours on the floor at the airport. Others were luckier, leaving it later and getting to the airport in normal time. Still little evidence of any damage in Tokyo – except a bent mast on the main TV tower! Finally, relief as the plane took off and the joy of returning to solid land which doesn’t rock or shudder under your feet every few minutes. But ultimately deeply worrying, as the nuclear power station story unfurled – not a station we had visited when in the same region 3 days earlier, but an incident into which many of our party had huge technical insight but needed our reports via emails and texts of the live TV coverage to understand it.

Fingers crossed for our new friends and colleagues in Japan, they are such a kind and considerate population and do not deserve this.

Since the general election in early May and the subsequent formation of the coalition Government, there have been major changes put in place, closing down the Regional Development Agencies by the middle of 2011, and taking away from the UK’s construction industry one of the major sources of public funding, to be replaced in due course by other bodies such as the Local Enterprise Partnerships, for which in early September 2010, 56 bids had been received and are being reviewed by BIS. Some of these are detailed proposals, some are three pagers. Some are for large LEPs, others are for small ones. Some will be accepted, others will not.

There has also been a drive to reduce public funds already allocated, for example, the Building Schools for the Future programme which is viewed as expensive and inefficient to run. In the West Midlands, the likes of Sandwell MBC will not be happy with the outcome following the cancellation of their BSF programme. These cuts were set in motion before the Comprehensive Spending Review, lead by the Treasury. This reviews the period 2011 to 2015 and is due to be presented by the Chancellor to Parliament on 20th October 2010.

According to Mark Prisk MP, Minister for Business and Enterprise, speaking to the Black Country Chamber of Commerce Awards Event on 9th September 2010, there is a bright economic future ahead of us. Business is the dynamo to drive the economy, moving away from the mistakes in recent years. He argued that entrepreneurial talent must be set free by creating the right environment for it to flourish, with less red tape. Many of us will agree with that approach. However, there is the inevitable delay before the LEPs will be up and running, probably not until the middle of 2011, and there is a major gap as to where new funding, private or public, may come from to enable the construction industry to survive in the mean time. Many companies will be going through a lean period and some, particularly those unable to obtain support from the banks, may not survive. There is a real risk of increased unemployment as a result.

At a time when many clients, particularly the less enlightened ones, are tending to go back to the bad old days of lowest price tendering and all that entails, there is the real fear that good companies, large and small, who provide products of value will not be able to compete and that we will revert to the conditions, pre-Latham and Egan and Wolstenholme, when things had become so bad for the industry that the Latham review had to be commissioned (1994). We have only to remember the problems with Wembley Stadium managed by traditional “old fashioned” methods, and the Emirates Stadium and the Olympic Park, which used the more integrated approach. Few of us will be proud of what happened at Wembley and the expensive and legal repercussions that resulted.

There are some out there who are sympathetic to the plight of the Construction Industry and it is hoped that the immediate future will not all be bad. There is no harm in reminding Government from time to time, whoever may be in power, that a healthy Construction Industry also means a healthy Gross Domestic Product. We should not forget that for every £1 spent by the construction industry, the GDP benefits by £2.84p.

During this interim period, there are fears of a double dip recession for the construction industry. The Constructing Excellence Movement is well aware that we have to do everything that we can to help the industry to survive and to enable it to be stronger for the future, so that when the economic situation improves, it is there to boost the GDP. Fundamental to this is Business Improvement through the likes of supply chains, and the resulting Project Improvement, thereby making supply chains, as perceived by Egan, to be more efficient and more competitive, enabling the industry to be more competitive. This will also enable the industry to be the dynamo to drive the economy.

Michael Thompson is Chairman of the Built Environment Improvement Network which is represented on the Constructing Excellence Management Board, and Executive Advisor to West Midlands Centre for Constructing Excellence.

We are delighted to be able to feature a guest blog from Paul Wilkinson:

‘Social media’ figures a lot in my construction PR and marketing consultancy work, but when asked to give an example of how it could ‘open doors’ I used to struggle with an answer. Not any more: blogging has got me talking to senior government decision-makers.

As well as advocating blogs to clients, I have been blogging since 2005 - writing a construction collaboration technology blog and, more recently, a PR/marketing/social media blog. In my technology blog, I wrote several times about the impending government appointment of a Chief Construction Advisor.

When Paul Morrell’s appointment was announced, I wrote an open letter to him, asking him to ensure that information and communication technologies (ICT) was fully utilised in helping to co-ordinate a low carbon policy and to improve the government’s return on its investment. I highlighted how ICT could play a vital role:

• “promote best practice in construction procurement” – think about the efficiency savings that come from automating aspects of tendering, making information available online and reducing paperwork.
• “implementation of Government policy” – from Gershon to Greening Government IT, ICT is now a cross-cutting strand within government and the Strategy for Sustainable Construction, albeit modestly, gives scope for government to encourage better ICT use across the industry at large and support its low carbon policy.
• “championing the industry’s image” – Too often described (sometimes unfairly) as ‘technophobic’, the industry could at least partly transform construction’s low-tech image by incorporating ICT more effectively into its day-to-day operations. This could range from high-end BIM collaboration to the ways in which industry manages its conversations with clients, supply chains, local communities, regulators, new recruits to the industry, and others (see post).

I then added a public PS, inviting him to consider social media tools and techniques (blogs, online forums, social networks, even Twitter) as a way to engage in online conversations with construction industry people.

To my surprise, Paul Morrell got in touch. In possibly his first ever foray into the blogosphere, Paul wrote a detailed reply to my post. He said he needed no persuading about the enormous potential of ICT:

“Just one those topics (and I need no persuading that it is a big one) is indeed the enormous potential that lies in more intelligent use of ICT. On that subject, the part of my mind that is closed is the part that is already persuaded of that potential in improving communications, reducing or removing transaction costs, transforming the way that buildings are designed, creating more direct links between design and fabrication/assembly, removing the coordination errors that too often block productivity etc. The part that is open is in recognising that there will be still more potential beyond my current understanding, and indeed beyond the general understanding of the industry – and also the part that addresses the hard issue of barriers to adoption. These are easy to list out: too many people of my generation in positions of influence, the multiplicity of systems (so that any single member of the supply chain who moves one way, will certainly find themselves dealing with other members who have gone a different way), the fact that if we don’t do it pragmatically we could spend the rest of several lifetimes talking about inter-operability etc; but I am open-minded as to which of these barriers are perceived and which are real, and as to the best way of hurdling them.”

He went on to say that he also intended to start his own limited engagement with social media:

“…I certainly intend within that period to set up a blog which, whilst it may be a bit slow motion for generations Y and Z, will provide an opportunity to show emerging thinking – and, above all, get some thinking back.”

Last month, I went to hear Paul Morrell speak at a meeting of the London Constructing Excellence Club, and when LCEC chairman Andrew Bowles introduced me to him, he immediately remembered the blog exchange (telling me also that he wasn’t quite sure he’d ever embrace Twitter). I am looking forward to supporting his efforts to build an online dialogue with construction industry people, and not just about the role of ICT or of social media.

Constructing Excellence is already embracing such tools (including this blog, use of Twitter, and deployment of social network platforms for G4C and the Collaborative Working Champions, among other things), and I am talking to LCEC’s February meeting about them too. Social media platforms are augmenting conventional communications, and - as my experience shows - they can be very useful in opening doors and starting conversations with the influential industry people you might want to talk to.

I have generally given up being shocked by opinions, especially when espoused in a search for votes. However, one particular policy statement announced this week took me aback somewhat. Did Kenneth Clarke really suggest that HSE inspectors were ‘intrusive’? Funny that. I thought that was part of their job.

Clarke has stated that, were the Conservatives to win the next election, contractors would be able to “curb the powers of intrusive inspectors by allowing firms to arrange their own, externally audited inspections and, providing they pass, to refuse entry to official inspectors thereafter”.

The new plans would see an initial health and safety assessment being carried out by a contractor’s employee and this being externally audited. I would like to outline two fundamental issues with this approach.

The first is purely logistical. The Conservative statement seems to require a new project role to be developed - the supply side health and safety auditor. A few questions:

• How does a contractor choose an auditor?
• Who audits the auditors to ensure that they can fulfil the role?
• At what point in the construction process does an assessment take place?

Clarke’s sales pitch for this was based on an appeal to the delights of a reduction in bureaucracy. However, all he appears to be doing is shifting the interface from being between the HSE and those that deliver construction work to being between the HSE (or equivalent) and those that audit those that deliver construction work.

It is also suggested here that the health and safety assessment take place once, after which ‘official’ inspectors could be banned from site. When would that be exactly? This proposal utterly fails to take account of the nature of construction work where the health and safety risks change over time. The present system isn’t perfect but, under the present regime, the way in which random inspections can take place at least fits with our understanding of construction risk.

My second issue is that making health and safety assessment a transactional relationship makes it utterly open to abuse. The Conservative statement does not provide detail on who would pay for the external audit to take place. My fear would be that there would an open market and that the auditor would act as a consultant to the contractor. If the auditor were employed by the contractor in this way, that auditor could potentially be influenced to pass unsafe practices for risk of not winning any future work from the contractor. In addition, the initial assessment being carried out by a member of the contractor’s staff could also lead to that person coming under pressure to not hold up a job on site. I have no doubt that the majority of those working in our sector would not seek to influence the results of any assessment but it does seem like the Conservative proposals take unnecessary risks around human nature.

We work in a sector that has made huge strides in health and safety performance over the last ten years but still results in far too many fatalities. As Rita Donaghy’s recent report states, One Death is Too Many. Many within our sector think that the HSE does a good job and would actually like to see them more heavily resourced. I believe that, rather than a deregulation of health and safety assessment, would lead to a reduction in accidents and a much healthier UK construction sector in all senses.

Repeated below is the Executive Summary of the new report from Constructing Excellence, published on 14 October 2010, entitled Never Waste a Good Crisis. Authored by Andrew Wolstenholme of Balfour Beatty Management, the report looks to determine the level of industry progress since Rethinking Construction and define the improvement agenda for the next decade.

Since Sir John Egan’s Task Force published its report Rethinking Construction in 1998, there has been
some progress, but nowhere near enough. Few of the Egan targets has been met in full, while most
have fallen considerably short. Where improvement has been achieved, too often the commitment to Egan’s principles has been skin-deep. In some sectors, such as housing, construction simply does not matter, because there is such limited understanding of how value can be created through the construction process.

For the last decade, the industry has been sheltered by a healthy economy. This has enabled construction to prosper without having to strive for innovation. The current economic crisis is a perfect opportunity for us to think again. We can not afford to waste it.

Looking ahead, there are major challenges on the horizon. Most clients have already cut their long-term investment plans, and capital budgets will be at risk for many years to come as we anticipate a long period of recovery from the current recession. For Government, there is huge pressure to reduce public spending. But perhaps the greatest challenge is how we can deliver a built environment that supports the creation of a low carbon economy for the UK. So while there is no crisis yet in our industry, we are approaching a time when UK plc can no longer afford to build and maintain, the infrastructure capable of supporting our future needs as a society.

So what will make the industry change now when it has failed to do so before? We believe that an essential step is for suppliers, clients and Government to adopt a new vision for the industry based on the concept of the built environment. This means understanding how value is created over the whole life cycle of an asset, rather than simply looking at the building cost, which is only a part of the total equation. It is about how the relatively small up-front costs of design and construction can have such huge consequences for future users, whether expressed as business or social outcomes, as well as for the environment.

The impact of this vision is potentially immense for our industry. We need to abandon our existing business models that reward short-term thinking. Instead, we should incentivise suppliers to deliver quality and sustainability by taking a stake in the long-term performance of a built asset.

How will this be achieved? We believe that the era of client-led change is over, at least for the moment, and that it is now time for the supply side to demonstrate how it can create additional economic social and environmental value through innovation, collaboration and integrated working – in short, the principles outlined in Rethinking Construction. Clients should focus instead on professionalising their procurement
practices to reward suppliers who deliver value-based solutions.

Government, as a client, needs to understand the enlightened thinking that better and more intelligent designs improve patients’ recovery in hospitals and learning outputs in schools. So, rather than reduce the number of schools and hospitals being built, it must sponsor smarter and more productive solutions and reduce the amount of money wasted on the procurement process. For Government as a policy maker, the challenge is to create an environment that incentivises innovation and speeds up the modernisation process.

There are other stakeholders with a key role to play. We need an education and training system that promotes holistic learning across disciplines, so that industry professionals are equipped with an understanding of how better integration delivers value. We also need industry bodies and professional associations to cooperate better to represent our industry effectively to Government and the public.

Above all, we need leaders who can engage the public and key stakeholders about the ‘new value’ the built environment brings, who can engage employees to deliver the necessary changes and who can attract more talented people from a wider pool to work in our industry. If our present leaders do not feel up to the task, they should at least support the development of the next generation, who appear to understand very clearly what is needed.