Memorandum submitted by the Construction
Confederation, Construction Industry Council and the Construction
Products Association
KEY MESSAGES
— The construction industry has the
capacity to deliver planned public sector investment programmes.
— The public sector has a major role
to play in maximising that capacity. There is a real sense of
frustration that this is not being tackled quickly enough despite
authoritative reports which make clear what needs to be done.
— The industry is working hard to improve
its health and safety performance and to create a more sustainable
built environment. Public sector clients could help stimulate
even better performance by awarding work to those companies genuinely
tackling these issues.
— Performance and productivity is being
hampered by insufficient R&D and unnecessary red tape.
INTRODUCTION
1. Construction is one of the major UK industries
with turnover in 2006 of over £114 billion, accounting for
nearly 9% of GDP. The industry employs nearly three million people
and exports over £7 billion of goods and services annually.
2. Together the Construction Confederation,
Construction Industry Council and Construction Products Association
represent the economic heart of the industry. The Construction
Confederation is the main representative body for the UK contracting
industry, the Construction Industry Council provides a voice for
professionals in all sectors of the built environment and the
Construction Products Association represents the UK's manufacturers
and suppliers of construction products, components and fittings.
Further details of our collective membership are at Appendix 1.
3. This submission focuses on the key issues
raised in the various topics covered by the Trade and Industry
Committee Inquiry and in particular how the public sector can
help:
— deliver the Government's long-term
capital investment programme in a way that provides best value
for its clients;
— the industry improve its own performance
for the benefit of all the industry's clients; and
— remove regulatory and fiscal burdens
on the industry to help it become more productive and competitive.
CAPACITY AND
EFFICIENCY
Recent Experience
4. The UK construction industry has enjoyed
an unparalleled period of steady growth since 1994 with increased
output in all but one of the subsequent 13 years. This has been
a welcome departure from the "boom bust" characteristics
of the industry in the previous 40 years. This pattern of steady
growth has not, however, been evenly spread across all sectors
of the industry, as is highlighted below.
5. One of the significant drivers for construction
growth over the second part of this period has been increased
public investment in the built environment, first signalled in
the Comprehensive Spending Review in 1998. Since then, gross government
investment has more than doubled in cash terms although the uplift
to work on the ground has been less due to inflation and a significant
under-spend of departmental capital budgets at the start of the
decade. Overall new public construction work (including PFI projects)
has risen by around 50% since 1999.
6. As a result, whilst some of the targets
for what this investment was intended to deliver are being met,
other targets have been abandoned or missed. Details are contained
in the Construction Products Association's annual report Achievable
Targets? Is Government Delivering? Amongst the many reasons for
this failure to deliver have been delays in the planning process
and the difficulties some parts of the public sector had in the
early years in gearing up to a higher level of activity.
7. Transport has been the most disappointing
of all the programmes. The ambitious Ten Year Transport Plan,
launched in 2000 was effectively abandoned by the Department for
Transport four years later, since when there has been a lack of
clarity on transport infrastructure investment. Moreover, since
2001, construction output on roads has fallen by more than a quarter
and on rail by almost a half. This deficiency was recently addressed
in the transport report by Sir Rod Eddington, which endorsed the
need for more accurate information on forward investment.
8. Capacity constraints in the construction
industry have not been a significant factor in the delay of any
of these programmes. The industry has been helped by the influx
of skilled and highly motivated labour from Eastern European countries,
especially Poland, and by the attraction to the UK of a number
of those with the professional skills we need from a variety of
countries around the world. In the manufacturing sector there
have been a number of significant acquisitions of major UK companies
by large global players, and in some cases this has provided access
to investment funds that may not otherwise have been available.
9. An NAO report "Improving Public
Services through Better Construction" (March 2005) concluded
that if more public sector clients adopted best practice, more
projects would run to time and budget resulting in savings of
between £500 million and £2.6 billion. Time and cost
overruns are often a result of the client reviewing the brief
once the project has started. The Highways Agency is already addressing
this issue in response to the Nichols Report.
Issues for the future
10. Looking forward, a key factor in future
demands on the construction industry will be the next Comprehensive
Spending Review which has been put back until the autumn of this
year. However, there are already clear programmes for public sector
investment on education, targets for new build and improvements
in social housing, and the delivery of the 2012 Olympic Games.
At the same time, commercial construction activity is expected
to be strong and the Government is keen to see increased levels
of private house building.
11. All the signs are that there will continue
to be strong demand for construction, and the latest industry
forecasts suggest that output will grow between 1% and 3.5% pa
in each of the next five years. Properly managed, however, this
should not be beyond the capacity of the industry, and an independent
report on Construction Demand/Capacity undertaken by Deloitte
for the Office of Government Commerce in June 2006 concluded that
the industry is not expected to face significant capacity constraints
in the period to 2015.
12. Nevertheless there may be particular
challenges in specific sectors and particular regions. For example
a recent survey by the Civil Engineering Contractors Association
showed that 69% of their industry's clients were experiencing
problems putting contracts out to tender because of shortages
in design engineering.
13. There are also likely to be inflationary
pressures on the industry. Construction inflation is already running
at twice CPI. This only serves to reinforce the importance of
public sector clients working much more closely with the industry
to enhance capacity and deliver better value—a point that
was highlighted in the conclusions of the Deloitte report and
something the industry has been pressing the Government to address
for some time.
14. There are a number of ways in which
we think these issues should be addressed.
Identification of long term programmes
15. First and foremost is the need for clients
to provide the industry with clear information on long-term investment
programmes and strategies, with clear output targets for what
these programmes are intended to deliver. This gives confidence
to the industry to create efficient supply chains, invest in training
the workforce, encourages manufacturers and suppliers to invest
in capacity in the UK and to develop innovative products and solutions.
There are clear long term plans in some sectors eg the programme
for school buildings delivered through Partnership for Schools
and the water industry investment plans. On transport, however,
there is uncertainty and confusion about future investment and,
in the health programme, the number of new PFI hospital projects
coming to the market has virtually dried up, and the Procure 21
programme has delivered far fewer projects than first envisaged.
16. The Chancellor made some encouraging
comments on the importance of long-term planning in his Pre Budget
Report and following the Kelly Review the OGC is trying to establish
a clearer picture of long-term demands on the industry in different
parts of the country. However, the delay in publication of this
year's Comprehensive Spending Review is not helpful and is adding
to industry uncertainty about investment decisions at a critical
time.
Keeping to programme
17. Ensuring a steady deal flow which runs
in accordance with previously published timescales is critical
because it enables the industry to keep together experienced teams
to deliver projects more effectively and to benefit from economies
of scale. One of the major shortcomings of the existing programme
of Government investment is that although it has set clear output
targets in a number of critical areas it does not collect information
on progress towards meeting the targets that have been set, nor
does it communicate well with the industry when programmes are
being delayed or changed.
18. A survey carried out by the Major Contractors
Group in 2005 on 57 PFI projects showed that the average delay
in projects against published schedules was eight months and that
the costs associated with these delays were £1.21 million
per project (some 1.6% of project values). Deal flow is often
erratic because bidding processes are inefficient. Again the MCG
survey showed that the time between expression of interest and
financial close ranged from 16-53 months with the average time
over 27 months. This ties up scarce bidding capacity and increases
costs—with construction inflation expected to remain well
above CPI there are obvious cost gains in reducing timescales.
Establishing different relationships for delivering
projects
19. The industry is committed to delivering
more projects through integrated supply chains and involving all
partners at the earliest possible stage to ensure maximum efficiencies
are generated in the design and construction process. A recent
survey of product manufacturers and suppliers showed that companies
from across the industry believed that between 15% and 20% of
project cost could be saved if a more integrated approach was
adopted with early supply chain involvement in the key design
and other decisions. The NAO Report in March 2005 estimated that
if all public sector clients adopted best practice and worked
with more integrated supply chains there could be an annual saving
of £2.6 billion on publicly funded construction projects.
Similar points are addressed by the Treasury in its Transforming
Government Procurement report in January 2007.
20. Private sector clients are increasingly
setting up framework contracts in order to build up longer-term
relationships with contractors and their supply chains, and there
are numerous examples of this reducing bidding costs by up to
a third and driving down costs further through incremental performance
improvements as the contract rolls on. This approach is also being
adopted by public sector procurers, but in doing so care has to
be taken not to disenfranchise smaller local contractors from
their traditional markets. A recent survey by the National Federation
of Builders shows that although some SMEs are successfully involved
in framework arrangements at present, the majority of SMEs involved
in the public sector are working outside frameworks having gained
the work through traditional procurement methods. It also shows
that companies at all levels within the SME sector are doing either
the same or less public sector work than they were five years
ago. There are clear findings that the sector sees current methods
of procurement to be a challenge requiring additional skills and
resources. Accordingly the NFB will be using the survey results,
amongst other things, to see what support SMEs need to access
public sector work.
Improving public sector procurement expertise
21. Too often decisions are devolved to
local decision makers lacking the necessary skills and expertise.
As a result rigorous assessments of projects are not always undertaken
before they are put to the market: We need more models such as
Partnership for Schools which allow local decision makers to draw
on centralised expertise. This in turn will help capture lessons
learned to improve processes and lead to greater standardization
of contracts, identify appropriate opportunities to use standardised
products and solutions, and more efficient design.
22. It has to be said that these points
have long been made to the Government and to individual clients
and there is a real sense of frustration within the industry that
they are not being addressed quickly enough. An obvious danger,
with private sector demand now increasing, is that the industry
will be well placed to get best return on its capital by only
choosing to work or place its best teams with those clients (public
and private) who can offer the conditions described above. To
put this in context it is worth noting that average margins in
contracting are around 2% and contractors are seeking to improve
profitability to more sustainable levels.
IMPROVING PERFORMANCE
IN THE
INDUSTRY
23. The industry has been the subject of
a number of major reports over the last 13 years aimed at driving
forward improvement in the performance of the construction industry.
The main bodies in the industry are now working together through
the Strategic Forum for Construction to facilitate improvements
in a number of key areas. A great deal has been achieved in terms
of, for example, improvements in health and safety, attracting
more people to work in the industry and improving their skills,
and encouraging more clients to purchase on the basis of best
value and not lowest initial cost. Much more, however, remains
to be done.
Health and Safety
24. Together with the trades unions we enjoy
a close working relationship with the Health & Safety Executive
and have put significant effort into ensuring that the new CDM
Regulations (2007) are a significant improve upon the previous
legislation. We are firmly committed to guide and encourage their
member firms across all sectors to go well beyond the law, which
we regard as the minimum benchmark, and at all times to seek to
operate best practice in health and safety.
25. In contracting, a major problem has
been that the barriers to entry have been low. This is changing,
however, through self regulation, as the industry seeks to improve
its image and improve health and safety. As a result, over the
past five years the industry has adopted a concerted effort to
improve on site safety. Key activities have included:
— A commitment to a fully qualified
workforce operating on our sites, with competence being measured
by the Construction Skills Certification Scheme (CSCS). The Major
Contractors Group has achieved almost 90% compliance and the Civil
Engineering Contractors Association (CECA) almost 80%.
— Standard site induction and worker
engagement programmes.
— Working with designers and material
suppliers to design out risks.
— Sharing information on near misses.
— The "Considerate Constructors
Scheme" which aims to spread best practice.
— Launching a national occupational
health scheme, "Constructing Better Health" and the
launch of a Health Management Toolkit by CECA with support from
the trade unions.
26. Although there is still some way to
go, this programme is already having a significant impact on health
and safety performance. For example, the Major Contractors Group
has achieved a 35% reduction in injuries with consistent improvements
in performance over 17 consecutive quarters. This is having an
impact throughout the supply chain. CECA similarly achieved a
14% reduction in 2005.
27. There are, however, four areas of continuing
concern:
— In adopting this programme of initiatives
the industry has built up a good working relationship with the
Health and Safety Executive (HSE) which has devoted increasing
resources towards preventing accidents and the incidence of occupational
ill health, rather than simply reacting to breaches of health
and safety regulations. This support is now under threat as the
HSE is having to rein back its staff numbers to meet Gershon efficiency
targets.
— Whilst we have had active support
from the regulator, the performance of public sector clients in
awarding work on the basis of health and safety performance has
been patchy. There are examples of good practice—Job Centre
Plus, Defence Estates, Highways Agency and Birmingham City Council.
Even so, a survey of contractors undertaken by the Construction
Confederation in May 2005 showed that, for example, only 52% of
respondents were always required to undergo a health and safety
assessment during the bidding process and only 13% were always
asked to make specific provisions for occupational health.
— Whilst we have worked over the past
year to raise awareness of the issue—through the "Buying
for Life" initiative—much more needs to be done to
change public sector behaviour.
— There is no single standard on corporate
competency to help clients judge the performance of potential
contractors. The government sponsored "Constructionline"
introduced 10 years ago has failed as a universal industry standard.
Most individual public sector clients use their own bespoke pre-qualification
procedures. This causes delay, increases costs and reduces the
opportunity to spread best practice.
— A major source of accidents is the
so called construction black economy. Attempts by successive governments
to regulate it have failed. Unfortunately, despite the obvious
perils, domestic consumers continue to be attracted to cheap cash
only deals. The obvious answer, on which the industry has campaigned
for years, has been ignored by Treasury. This is to introduce
a reduced rate of VAT (possibly 5%) to all work of improvement,
repair and maintenance to dwellings. This would remove the competitive
advantage of those who avoid registration for VAT at the expense
of bona fide builders.
28. In the professional services sector,
the CIC and its member organisations have declared that design
should have health & safety as a non-negotiable top priority
throughout all of its processes. CIC is committed to producing
a new generation of safety-oriented, post-CDM (2007) design guidance
in association with the leading design institutions.
29. A further commitment is to inject more
health & safety content into Further and Higher Education
courses across the footprint of the built environment professions—CIC
is identifying a number of relevant Common Learning Outcomes focused
on health & safety and is working with the accrediting institutions
and the Universities and Colleges to continue the process of prioritising
these outcomes into the course content.
30. The introduction of the Professionally
Qualified Persons' CSCS card in November 2006 has extended the
CSCS system into the professions and ensures that all professional
persons who have contractual and inspection functions which require
regular non-permanent visits to construction sites have passed
an appropriate higher level health & safety test. Around 30
relevant professional institutions in the building, construction
and engineering sectors are now eligible for their members to
apply for the PQP card.
31. Manufacturers and suppliers of construction
products have also done much to improve health and safety within
their operations and quantitative targets for accident reductions
have focused efforts and have delivered results. The Quarry Products
Association's Hard Targets which started in 2000 delivered a 52%
reduction in five years with the big six companies achieving a
73% reduction. There is now a new target of a further 50% reduction
from the 2004 baseline with an aim of zero incidents. In the precast
concrete sector there has been a 55% reduction in accidents in
six years for those members of the BPCF that are in the Concrete
Targets 2010 Scheme. The cement industry has set out a target
of a 30% reduction year on year and achieved 20% in the first
year.
32. The construction products industry also
recognises the important role it has to play in ensuring it develops
products that minimise health and safety risks on site by being
easy to handle and install, and avoiding the need for secondary
working. Many of the innovations in the industry are directed
to address these issues. In addition manufacturers and suppliers
are taking account of health and safety issues in the on-going
maintenance of the products with major steps forward being taken
with innovations like the development of self-cleaning glass.
Sustainable Construction
33. The construction industry has a key
part to play in delivering energy efficient buildings to reduce
carbon emissions, waste reduction and resource efficiency, minimising
the use of water, and constructing with sustainable products and
materials.
34. There are two clear strands to sustainability
within construction. The first is to make the construction process
more sustainable. Manufacturers and suppliers have significantly
reduced the use of energy in the production process and are increasingly
using by products from other industries as their own raw materials
and sources of fuel (such as the burning of tyres and household
waste) although continuing uncertainty in the distinction between
waste and by product is not helping the industry. More fuel efficient
vehicles are being used to transport products and improved logistics
are reducing the number of vehicle movements that are needed.
35. Contractors are taking steps to reduce
the amount of waste going to landfill, monitoring and reducing
their energy consumption, and using the Considerate Constructors
Scheme to minimise the impact of construction on local neighbourhoods.
The business case for doing this is clear and some companies have
already set stiff targets—for example to achieve zero waste
to landfill.
36. The second strand is to produce more
sustainable buildings and structures. The drivers to achieve this
are less certain. A recent report by Sir Neville Simms' sustainable
procurement task group concluded that "incentive systems
neither reward sustainable procurement nor do they punish failure
to comply with existing policies in this area".
37. In the public sector, the prospect of
higher initial capital cost is a significant barrier to the consideration
of more sustainable solutions. This barrier is partly due to a
lack of understanding of whole life costs, but even where these
are understood there are issues of affordability for procurers
to overcome. This has been addressed within PFI where there is
a clear financial mechanism to spread cost more evenly over a
medium term time frame. We suggest that a similar mechanism needs
to be considered to promote sustainability within more conventionally
financed construction projects.
38. The most important driver at the moment
is the growing focus on climate change, particularly since the
report by Nick Stern at the end of last year. In response to this,
one of our goals must be to improve and encourage universal carbon
literacy (ie understanding the carbon footprint of individual
citizens, homes and businesses) amongst the industry, its clients,
and consumers.
39. Building on the development of the Code
for Sustainable Homes, Government now aims to ensure that all
new housing is zero carbon by 2016 and this will require close
working between the housebuilders, designers, manufacturers and
suppliers, and the energy suppliers. A plethora of unco-ordinated
initiatives across local authorities will not be helpful in achieving
this. Government is now looking at developing a similar code for
non-domestic buildings, but there are very few policy initiatives
to tackle the energy efficiency of existing buildings. Existing
housing, for example, on average generates four times more carbon
than houses built to the current building regulations and Government
needs to incentivise householders (particularly following the
introduction of the new Energy Performance Certificates) to invest
in improving the energy efficiency of their property.
40. The CIC and CABE have identified that
there needs to be a greater integration of effort in providing
low carbon building design solutions, and that designers and other
professionals engaged in developing new buildings need clear and
simple guidance. As identified above, most importantly we need
to focus on more efficient management of existing buildings.
41. Growing attention is also being given
to the use of more sustainable construction products and materials,
and the Construction Products Association is very much involved
in work, which is already at a fairly advanced stage to develop
methodologies to help measure the environmental impact of products
and their on-going use.
42. Overall, the lack of a single strategic
framework tackling the issue in construction—as opposed
to a plethora of competing and confusing initiatives from a wide
range of departments and agencies—is hampering progress.
We hope that the DTI's emerging "Sustainable Construction
Strategy" will tackle this issue head on.
Recruitment and training
43. Recruiting and providing skills to new
people coming into the industry is an important part of our sustainability
agenda. The industry is working closely with its Sector Skills
Council—ConstructionSkills—who have submitted detailed
evidence on the challenges facing the industry.
44. The industry's workforce has always
been mobile and flexible. However, over dependence on overseas
labour could leave the industry vulnerable if the construction
economies in their home states were to take-off and draw workers
back home.
45. We are therefore keen to do more to
encourage home grown talent. For example, the 2012 Olympics has
encouraged the Major Contractors Group, working with it supply
chain, to commit to providing 1,000 job placements for youngsters
on construction courses in FE colleges; sponsoring 50 undergraduates
to obtain a construction related degree; providing a further 1,000
training placements for local people over 21; and offering training
to a further 500 people who have already entered the industry.
46. One stumbling block is the absence of
significant resources from the public sector to upskill adult
learners because too much emphasis is being placed on pre-18 year
old education.
47. In the civil engineering sector, CECA
is working with in partnership with Network Rail and the Association
of Consultancy and Engineering to provide a wide ranging training
and development programme for new civil engineering graduates
to enable them to attain Chartered Engineer status.
48. In the professional services sectors,
the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) model highlights shortages,
and is currently showing a shortage of building services (mechanical
and electrical) engineers and a case study is shortly to be considered
by Ministers for Quantity Surveyors to be placed on the National
Shortage Occupations List. Similar cases are to be made for skills
shortages in other built environment professions. CIC and ConstructionSkills
are advising Work Permits (UK) on this issue. A shortage of graduates
is a problem across the engineering sector both in terms of recruitment
and retention.
Research and Development
49. Construction product manufacturers and
suppliers have traditionally been the main source of innovation
and research in the industry because it gives them the opportunity
to gain a competitive edge. They have also been increasingly involved
in more "blue sky" type research in collaboration with
universities.
50. The construction industry as a whole
has, however, traditionally been weak in generic applied research
and the main reasons for this are outlined in evidence submitted
by the Building Research Establishment (BRE) and other research
and technology organisations. In addition, the industry has received
insufficient support from Government in recent years to fund vital
independent applied R&D whether in relation to supporting
policy decisions, ensuring effective regulation or meeting its
needs as its major client. This was recognized by Sir John Fairclough
in his 2002 review of construction R&D which was commissioned
by the DTI. However, the main recommendations in his report, which
continue to hold good today, have never been implemented.
51. Recent changes in the economic and commercial
environment—more stability and long-term investment and
more integrated methods of working—have, however, meant
that the industry is now paying more attention to R&D. With
support from DTI, it has set up a National Platform for the Built
Environment which is business led and provides a mechanism for
the industry to articulate its R&D needs to the research community.
Nevertheless it is also essential that key aspects of Government
policy are underpinned by suitable independent research and this
is no longer happening at the level that gives assurance about
some of the policy decisions that are being taken These matters
are dealt with in greater detail in the joint submission that
the Committee has received from the BRE, BSRIA, CIRIA, TRADA and
CS and we endorse the general principles and recommendations of
that submission.
Regulation and bureaucracy
52. The industry generally welcomes regulation
where it serves a purpose to help create a level playing field
in areas such as health and safety and environmental performance,
providing the administrative burden implementing the regulations
are appropriate and there is not adverse impact on the competitiveness
of those companies in the sector (particularly those in the manufacturing
side) that are competing in international markets. The industry
has had good relations with the better regulation unit in the
Cabinet Office and has been encouraged by the increasing attention
that is now being given to better regulation since the Hampton
and Arculus Reviews.
53. One of the recent positive examples
is the development of a new electronically based construction
industry tax scheme which ought to reduce the current paper chase
involved in verifying an operative's tax status. New Construction
Design Management (CDM) regulations are also more practically
based and less bureaucratic than their predecessors.
54. Building Regulations have a major impact
on the industry both in the standards they set and the way in
which they operate. Their effective implementation relies upon
a robust system which blends a necessary degree of self-certification
with appropriate checks and inspections made by building control
officers. As building regulations have become more complicated,
however, there have been increasing difficulties in their development
and interpretation, and shortages of staff have meant that some
aspects of their implementation have been less than satisfactory.
What is needed is a clear long term framework with an emphasis
on clarity, implementation and integration with other regulation
impacting upon the built environment.
55. The vast number of sometimes conflicting
environmental regulations also cause major concern. We have identified
over 400 pieces of legislation—whilst not all of these are
of equal importance it demonstrates the burden, and complexity,
placed on the industry. Sometimes this burden is disproportionate.
For example, the Hazardous Waste (England and Wales) Regulations
2005 require all construction sites producing such waste, however,
small, to register and pay a fee to the regulator. Other commercial
premises are exempted below a de minimis level or only the producer's
principle place of business requires registration.
56. We also have concerns about the definition
of waste material in the EU Waste Framework Directive, which is
cast too wide. For manufacturers and suppliers, defining a product
as waste can have significant economic implications and at the
same time, quite perversely, result in a greater environmental
impact. For contractors it would be reasonable to exclude natural
materials which are uncontaminated and can be used again in their
natural state, either on the same construction site or another
site.
57. The planning system has also been the
source of much frustration in the industry with delays in reaching
decisions and inconsistency in the outcomes. This is seriously
holding back steps by many manufacturers and suppliers to invest
in new operations that will increase capacity and improve their
productivity and competitiveness. It is hoped that the new Planning
White Paper will begin to address some of these issues. Small
and medium-sized businesses in the construction industry are also
rightly concerned about the burden of the triple regulatory burden
imposed upon them by planning, building control and CDM 2007.
It is very important that steps are taken as far as practicable
to harmonise and integrate these regulatory and control systems.
58. We also have concerns that DTI may be
proposing to change the payment provisions of the Construction
Act. A consultation document is expected shortly. We believe that
the recently agreed OGC Fair Payment Charter and the changes the
industry has agreed to the adjudication provisions of the Construction
Act render further change unnecessary. We do, however, urge that
the agreed reforms to the Act to improve the adjudication provisions
are implemented without delay.
Maintenance of Standards within the sector
59. Every time a new building or structure
is commissioned, the industry is effectively developing a prototype.
It is essential to monitor these unique processes to ensure that
there is a consistently good product. The end user does not always
know whether the building meets their needs until it is occupied.
To overcome this uncertainty, the industry has developed the Design
Quality Indicator (DQI) as a web-based tool which provides a framework
for the assessment of the design of buildings. It is used to assist
all stakeholders to set priorities for the shared outcomes of
their building project and then assess at regular gateways how
well the emerging building is meeting these aims. Almost 800 projects
have now used the DQI.
60. As far as construction products are
concerned, standards are important because they are transparent
and consensus based and they give assurance to the users of the
products about their manufacture and performance. Representatives
from the Construction Products Association and its member companies
play a significant part in the work of BSI, but as the focus shifts
more to the development of harmonised European Standards, there
are growing concerns that the reducing funding to support UK expertise
in the European Standards setting bodies, means we are increasingly
vulnerable to this work being driven by other Member States. In
the long term this could be to the detriment of the industry in
the UK.
APPENDIX 1
INFORMATION ABOUT ORGANISATIONS MAKING THIS
SUBMISSION
CONSTRUCTION CONFEDERATION
The Construction Confederation is the main representative
organisation for building and civil engineering contractors within
the UK construction industry, an umbrella group consisting of
the British Woodworking Federation (BWF), Civil Engineering Contractors
Association (CECA), Major Contractors Group (MCG), National Contractors
Federation (NCF), National Federation of Builders (NFB) and Scottish
Building. The Confederation represents over 5,000 construction
companies who together produce 75% of construction output in the
UK.
CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY
COUNCIL
The Construction Industry Council is the umbrella
body for the professional services sector, professional institutions,
research organisations, and standards setting bodies. It provides
a single voice for professionals across the built environment
through its collective membership of 500,000 individual professionals
and around 25,000 firms of construction consultants. In addition,
CIC represents the views of the professionals in ConstructionSkills—the
Sector Skills Council for construction.
CONSTRUCTION PRODUCTS
ASSOCIATION
The Construction Products Association is the
umbrella body for all manufacturers and suppliers of construction
products in the UK. Its membership comprises the 24 major companies
in the industry (which includes large international groups such
as Hanson, Wolseley, Saint Gobain and Lafarge) together with 43
of the sector trade associations which represent the different
product areas such as steel, cement, glass, and plastics. The
industry is made of almost 30,000 companies and has an ouput in
the UK of over £40 billion, representing 40% of construction
output.
The three bodies increasingly work together
both to represent the construction industry and to help stimulate
and support improved performance. They have regular meetings with
the different Government Departments that are relevant to the
industry and collectively provide the major focus and administrative
support for the Strategic Forum for Construction which aims to
facilitate improved performance across the construction industry,
including the performance of its clients.
June 2007
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