From the homes we wake up in, to the schools we take our children to,
the hospitals we depend on - and the infrastructure that connects,
transports us and generates our power - the construction industry shapes our world.
But for all its impact, the sector has long-been beset with challenges - struggling to raise
productivity, improve quality, operate more sustainably or fully protect its workers.
Now, the UK’s government has teamed-up with the industry to try and change construction.
But after so many Governments have attempted to hit the reset button before,
and with several big industry reports already under our belt - is this time
truly different, and will this plan actually work?
We now need construction more than ever.
We have to build in a more sustainable way that doesn’t harm our planet, many nations
are facing a housing crisis, changing social dynamics are impacting how we now use our cities
and many governments see big building programmes as a way to bounce back from the pandemic.
It’s a context that has put construction’s challenges under the microscope.
The severe lack of people choosing to work in the sector, failure to embrace change
and low productivity levels are now global problems.
As with many countries, in the UK the government is the largest construction client.
They spend the most on buildings and infrastructure and have the power to influence
how the industry works through the type of projects they commission and how they manage them.
To try and improve the sector, the UK Government has listened to the industry
to understand where the big challenges are and then worked with it to develop
The Construction Playbook - a comprehensive near 90-page plan
that sets how the Government will approach construction projects going forward.
Why is it so important to everybody that we get construction right?
Well listen Fred I don’t need to tell you that construction is a huge part of
the economy – it’s a £120BN part of the economy – it’s a crucial part of the whole Government’s
approach to rebuilding infrastructure and it plays a vital role in people’s everyday lives.
We take it very seriously in the Government and we’ve spent a lot of time thinking about
how to improve, how to support and to develop the industry over the longer term.
We decide that we’re going to build things, and those are things that tend to have a really,
really long life, and they’re things that actually underpin the whole of our quality of life.
They provide the way we get around every day, they provide the digital connectivity that we rely on,
they provide the buildings that we’re all inside – anything and everything in terms of how
our everyday lives function essentially starts from some form of construction,
in terms of the built environment.
What are some of the challenges at the moment? What is it that’s made the Playbook necessary?
The biggest challenge is that effectively the whole business model doesn’t work.
It’s as simple as that. It’s a broken business model. The construction industry,
the main contractors have positioned themselves
into a place where they don’t make any money. It’s not a sustainable business model.
What you’re describing there sounds pretty fundamental, you know, a broken business model.
How does the Playbook try and address that? What are some of
the key things in here that you think are going to make a big difference?
Government have been looking at the industry to resolve its own problems, and on its own it
can’t. There’s not enough money in the industry to invest in productivity, in different forms of
construction, in different ways to design things – so on its own it can’t resolve the problem.
At the Playbook’s core are three main priorities;
improving workforce safety and wellbeing, addressing building safety - particularly in
the wake of the UK’s Grenfell Tower disaster - and building back greener; helping to achieve a 68%
cut in the UK’s overall greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and a 100% cut by 2050.
There are then 14 mandated policies that any projects developed by the UK’s central
government, will have to follow - triggering a trickle-down effect into Local Authorities,
the private sector and the supply chain.
The ideas are not exactly radical or new and focus almost entirely on the front-end,
emphasising getting things right in the pre-construction process.
The hope is that, the changes they initiate, will go on to help address many of the biggest issues.
First they’ll be a clear, central pipeline of work published by the
Government - helping the industry to plan and prepare for projects way in advance.
Departments planning projects will have to assess the market early on - picking up on
weaknesses or opportunities, and seeing which emerging tech they could take advantage of.
The Government will also commit to longer-term projects in certain areas,
giving the industry the certainty it needs to invest in new technologies.
Building on that longer-term approach,
the Government’s construction projects will be harmonised to choose for a standardised set
of components - improving value for money and reducing long term maintenance costs,
while enabling construction to fully scale its emerging offsite manufacturing techniques.
They’ll be another push to use information modelling
and standardise data - and early supply chain involvement will now be mandated.
In one of the biggest shifts, departments will now need to focus
on the outcomes they are trying to achieve with a new building or built asset,
rather than the short-term scope of their construction projects.
There are new rules on benchmarking to help with decision making, a requirement to consider
the best delivery model and, from there, a renewed emphasis on effective contracting.
Moving into the procurement phase, where the government actually issues tenders for work,
there’ll be a fairer and more balanced approach to risk management and new rules on payment
and pricing - moves the government hopes will make it a more attractive party to work with.
Finally, the financial standing of critical suppliers will be assessed before contracts
are awarded and plans for the worst case drawn up in advance - helping
to prevent the chaos that’s caused when construction firms collapse.
While pretty much all of this may feel like common sense, it’s not the way that construction
currently works - and, while things have been steadily getting better, our built world tends
to get delivered through a laborious, expensive, inefficient and confrontational process.
Though the challenge is a global one, many UK governments have grappled with the task
of changing this vast and fragmented industry - drawn by a desire to build a greener society,
grow the economy and get better value for their taxpayers.
Just since 1994, a myriad of major reports, reset moments,
new strategies and new governments have come and gone, each moving things forward a little,
but ultimately failing to connect on a widespread scale.
Despite these interventions being welcomed and triggering some pioneers to emerge in
some cutting-edge fields, much has remained the same.
With another of these moments now upon us, I wanted to ask the UK Government and the industry
about this track-record and understand what - if anything - will be different this time around.
While many of us may be weary of past experiences and sceptical about how The
Construction Playbook may actually change things,
it’s existence and championing by the UK’s central government should of course be welcomed.
Now published and available for free download in the UK and the rest of the world,
the document sets a vision to aim for and could have a knock-on effect in
other countries' interested in its theories - helping change our world for the better.
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