Issue Three
Government and Construction:
Is the dialogue still too fragmented?
The relationship between the British Government and the Construction Industry has been the subject of ongoing debate for many years. Many organisations in the industry felt that the transfer of the sponsorship role from the DETR to the DTI in 2001, and the consequent separation of construction from planning, housing and building regulations, was inappropriate. They continue to argue that the industry/Government interface is in need of review.
Prior to the last election, the Construction Industry Council (CIC) argued that the segregation of the various sectors of the industry within different parts of Government (architecture in DCMS; construction in DTI; transport in DoT; housing in ODPM etc) was an obstacle to the development of an integrated industry and to good relations between the industry and Government.
The Government is the industry's largest customer, as well as its regulator and its sponsor. Unfortunately, these three roles are scattered amongst many departments and lack coherence. No fewer than eight departments have a slice of the regulatory or sponsorship roles and at least thirteen spending departments are regular clients. Whilst the Government as client is becoming more coherent under the leadership of the Treasury and, in particular, the Office of Government Commerce (OGC), its role as a sponsor of construction and particularly of essential generic research, has reduced along with the DTI's construction budget.
The CIC, which I now chair, has given serious consideration to the most mutually beneficial structure of Government responsibilities for construction. The CIC is an umbrella body joining together some 50+ industry institutions and associations, representing some 300,000 construction professionals and around 30,000 firms. Its conclusion is that the best arrangement for the future is to link the sponsorship role as closely as possible to the customer focus. That way the supply side focus would align more closely with the demand-side requirements of the OGC. The CIC is also seeking more joined-up regulation, covering land use, historic building protection, building control, health and safety, water and energy use and environmental protection.The Halcrow Report of 2004 into the Unification of Consent Regimes, commissioned by ODPM as it then was, remains unprogressed. For a brief time, health & safety was hosted by the same part of Government as the building regulations - an excellent albeit all-too-temporary integration of related regulation concerned with industry and public safety (why can't the 5,000 building control professionals be directly concerned with health & safety on the sites that they visit, rather than relying on just the 100 HSE inspectors); and why aren't the regulations controlling water use in new buildings integrated into the building regulations?
As a Minister, I am only too aware that it is not possible to create a single point within Government for all its dealings with the construction industry but the Built Environment is the nation's largest economic sector, and influences in so many ways performance and quality of life of all the others. It is far too important to be scattered so disparately throughout Government and these two initiatives - to link the sponsorship and customer roles as closely as possible and to coordinate regulatory regimes wherever possible - will do much to improve the situation.
Nick Raynsford
March 2007
What's your Perspective?
Nick Raynsford, Chairman of the Construction Industry Council, gives Perspective his thoughts on how the interface between Government and the construction industry can be improved.