Getting from A to B

A week before IaIn Duncan Smith was replaced as Tory leader, former prime minister John Major wrote: "The broad mass of the nation is detached from politics. Many feel a distaste for it. They do not share the ancient tribal loyalties. All the party machines are moribund, near bankrupt, unrepresentative and ill-equipped to re-enthuse the electorate."

Major could have been describing our industry's political structure, except that instead of three significant parties, construction is saddled with 60-odd trade associations, unions and professional institutions.

Many of these are still pushing "tribal" rituals and rivalries, hoping that what they see as the threat of integration and collaborative working will blow over and everyone can rejoin the adversarial circus that they direct.

Because they are seen as bickering, insecure and often unrepresentative, these bodies are losing touch with their membership. It must be serious when more than 1000 members of one of our oldest chartered institutions, the RICS, are threatening to leave and join a new unrecognised, non-chartered association run by lawyers.

Whatever the general public may think of estate agents, or the construction industry of quantity surveyors, the standing of chartered surveyors remains remarkably high among the supervising classes. It must take a lot of dissatisfaction with policy and service to bring normally ultraconservative chartered surveyors to this stage of rebellion.

Some associations are seen as an exclusive club working only in the interests of a small clique of activists, others simply as a gravy train for their staff. Most are unsure of their role in the 21st-century construction industry, where all the traditional tribal values and rules of engagement are being replaced by modern management structures.

Construction is saddled with 60-odd trade associations, unions and professional institutions

This confusion about their roles is probably the main reason why the government has (I hope only temporarily) created two industries, as so ably described by John Smith (Building, 12 September, page 29).

The government, encouraged by the major contractors, has long been under the delusion that the top 20 contractors (Smith's "industry A") are at the head of one enormous supply-chain pyramid. The government has promised to build schools and hospitals. To do this, it thought that all it had to do was give the jobs to the A side, to whom the half million or so lesser contractors and specialists ("industry B") would be forced to subcontract. This plan, of course, is not working.

If there had been coherent representative advice coming from the associations, they would have pointed out that the A side's supply chain accounts for only 20% of construction output and resources. The B side, made up of the large and medium-sized local and regional contractors and their extended supply chain, controls 80% of construction's output through its own, entirely separate, supply-chain pyramid. Government partnering stops at prime contractors, PFI scheme companies or the supervisors and regulators – so industry B is excluded from the benefits of integration and collaborative working. Even worse: ministers have stressed that the B side is to be subjected to a "rigorous competitive process" (David Milliband) or "creative competitive tension" (Treasury PFI Unit).

The B side is responding by saying "no thanks, we'll take our skills and resources elsewhere". The NHS and the Department for Education and Skills are now talking about including regional and local contractors directly, rather than as subcontractors to the prime contractors, but time is running out.