The industry has expressed disappointment and frustration at yesterday’s announcement from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills that the Construction Leadership Council is to be slimmed down from a 30-strong body to just 12, while the post of the government’s chief construction adviser is to be scrapped.
BIS presented the reform as a response to feedback from members of the CLC itself and specifically its co-chair, HS2 executive chairman Sir David Higgins.
But a flurry of emailed statements from various industry bodies yesterday decried the lack of consultation preceding the move, and the fact that sections of the industry will now lose their representation on the Council.
Meanwhile, BIS said that because the new council would "carry forward" the work of chief construction adviser, "as a result the role will not be continued after the incumbent Peter Hansford’s tenure ends in November."
"At the CIOB, we are largely encouraged by the changes. We welcome the emphasis on dialogue, which means that government will be open to talk to those who have something useful and constructive to say."
Chris Blythe, CIOB
After the election, it is understood that some industry bodies did offer BIS their views on how the work of the CLC could be improved, but most seem surprised and disappointed at events.
Industry comments also hinted that the representative function of the CLC – if not the direct link to government – could now be assumed by the revived Strategic Forum for Construction.
A statement from the CIC also put forward the suggestion that the industry could fund the role of chief construction adviser in order to "keep this important post which combines both expert advice to ministers and the highest representative of the industry."
However, the CIOB’s chief executive Chris Blythe welcomed aspects of the changes, including the shift from representation at government level to a new focus on “dialogue”, and new arrangements for delivering projects via “workstreams”.
Blythe said: “At the CIOB, we are largely encouraged by the changes. We welcome the emphasis on dialogue, which means that government will be open to talk to those who have something useful and constructive to say.
“If a business leader can bring a coalition together to fund work streams then it is likely to be more effective than government-funded ones of the past. Business leaders don’t have time to waste and the focus might be a bit sharper.”
The fate of the Council had been in the balance since May, when BIS cancelled the main Council meeting in June. This was followed by the cancellation of a meeting of its “delivery group”, the subsidiary body that acted as its executive.
The CLC’s initiatives include a forthcoming single portal for construction careers information, due to be delivered by the CITB in September, aligning skills cards with the CSCS scheme, research on product manufacturing capacity, and coordinating the work of the Green Construction Board.
But it has struggled to deliver a Supply Chain Payment Charter, with the industry still awaiting the working details of an outline scheme delivered in April 2014.
Although the full make-up of the new council has not yet been finalised, most of the previous membership looks likely to depart, including Construction Industry Council chairman Tony Burton, the only representative of the professional services sector; Knauf managing director John Sinfield, chairman of the Construction Products Association; and John Gray, chief executive of Innovate UK.
The CPA complained that the new Council would “no longer represent the whole construction supply chain as it does not have an industry leader from construction product manufacturing or distribution. The decision means one-third of the construction supply chain by value will be absent from the Council’s membership.”
"The government has often asked for industry to speak with a single voice but it appears itself now to be working against that objective."
Tony Burton, Construction Industry Council
And the CIC’s Tony Burton also expressed disappointment at the new council’s lack of representative force. “The government has often asked for industry to speak with a single voice but it appears itself now to be working against that objective. The CLC – as now constituted – is effectively just one more body, not a unification of the various sector organisations, which means that the Strategic Forum for Construction now takes on an even greater significance as the industry’s united voice”.
The Strategic Forum – representing the CPA, CIC, the newly-formed Build UK, the Specialist Engineering Council, Civil Engineering Contractors Association, NFB and FMB – has recently undergone a revival and its website is being relaunched.
It is thought its new chair – yet to be decided, but one of the chief executives of the above groups – will be invited by BIS to sit on the new council.
That person will join retained faces including Anna Stewart, chief executive of Laing O’Rourke, Skanska chief executive Mike Putnam, and Crossrail chief executive Andrew Wolstenholme.
They are joined by co-chairs David Higgins and skills minister Nick Boles, and Madani Sow, chief executive of Bouygues UK.
Places are also reserved for the chair of the UK Trade and Investment’s Construction Advisory Group, a volume house builder, and a representative of an SME in the supply chain. The BIS spokesman said the remaining places would be filled by a “mix of old and new faces”.
The former CLC also had a “delivery group”, made up of individuals on the staff of the bodies represented on the main council, which acted as the CLC’s executive arm.
It has also been disbanded, although BIS says that the new council’s members will instead head “workstreams” – for instance on innovation, sustainability and training – and that “the existing delivery group organisations will still be closely involved through the workstreams”.
