December: why we need to re-think construction yet again
Paul Morrell, the government’s chief construction adviser, is calling for the restructuring of the industry around partnership working. Sounds familiar? Much the same plea was made by Egan in 1998 and Latham in 1994 – and in the countless other official reports I still have on my bookshelves (actually they’re in the garage) going back to the Banwell Report of the 1960’s. It’s too cold to go out to check, but I seem to recall it was Banwell who exhorted the various participants in the industry to ‘think and act as one”.
The solid consensus over more than 40 years is that, if the industry did think and act as one, it could cut the cost of construction by up to 30%. Morrell talks about a saving range of 10 – 30%, and suggests that something close to zero carbon buildings should be delivered without extra cost.
Many years ago, I helped a major car producer to develop work-based learning for its senior managers – and I still have a clock on my wall (made out of a Ford Fiesta piston!), as a reminder of that experience. I recall friends in Ford telling me that the key to improvement was to drive forward productivity increases, emission reductions, safety standards and build quality at one and the same time – rather than accepting the idea of trade-offs between different goals.
That’s a very different mind-set from the one that says that schools will inevitably be poorer if they cost less to build. Ford had the spur of Japanese competition to concentrate their minds – either produce better cars more cheaply, or go out of business.
Will the twin spurs of drastically-reduced client budgets (especially in the public sector) and the low-carbon agenda be enough to produce the transformation of UK construction called for over so many decades? Only, I suggest, if the industry develops the will to make that happen – rather than, as, in the past, grudgingly adapting its traditional professional rituals. Otherwise, perhaps, we will have to wait for Chinese construction industry to move in here.
November: the media hasn’t explained new university funding plans
David Willetts’s statement to the House of Commons yesterday more or less makes clear the intended future funding model for higher education tuition. The detail will appear in a White Paper later, and the changes will take effect from 2013-14.
At present full-time students pay an annual fee of £3 290 which covers about half the cost of tuition, on average. Universities receive a government block grant to cover the remaining teaching costs for a contracted number of students – and they are fined if they exceed the contracted number. Under the proposed model, the vast majority of the block grant for teaching will go, and be replaced by student fees, which will range from a ‘basic threshold’ of £6 000 to an ‘absolute limit’ of £9 000.
Student loans will become repayable when the graduate’s income reaches £21 000, at a rate of 9% of income in excess of of £21 000. Loans will be written off after 30 years. The interest rate will be tapered to a maximum of 3% above inflation. There will be a £150m National Scholarships Programme for bright students from poor households, in which all universities charging more than £6000 will have to participate. Students from homes with a family income of less than £25,000 will be eligible for a non-repayable maintenance grant; partial grants will be available to students from homes up to £42,000 family income, and maintenance loans for family incomes up to £60, 000.
I’ve obtained the above information from Hansard, in frustration at the limited detail in the media. The important thing now, surely, is that we do all we can to encourage students to invest in their futures – and not to be deterred by the excessive media concentration on debt.
The proposals will have failed if they result in reduced participation in HE. There is detail still to be obtained, especially how construction might benefit from additional government support for STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). But construction offers great career opportunities and access routes from multiple entry points. And the industry needs a better share of the nation’s talent pool. Others may argue about whether it’s fair for HE to be funded by those who participate in it, rather than from general taxation – but the former seems to be the likely pattern for the future. So let’s make it work for students and the industry.
John Bale PPCIOB is blogging regularly at the website of the Centre for Knowledge Exchange, part of Leeds Metropolitan University. Follow his posts are available at www.ckegroup.org/blog
