Never in my experience have we seen such an outpouring of material – reports, initiatives, and inquiries – relating to construction as we have seen in the last couple of years. My summer reading has been taken up with perusing all this material commencing with the Farmer Review, Modernise or Die published in October 2016. Below is the list of my reading material: 

• Report of the Independent Inquiry into the Construction of Edinburgh Schools (Feb. 2017).
• Retentions in the Construction Industry (Pye Tait report, Oct. 2017).
• Project 13 Blueprint by the Infrastructure Client Group and ICE (May 2018).
• Reports from the BEIS Select Committee (jointly with Work and Pensions Select Committee), Public Accounts Committee and Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, all relating to Carillion and lessons to be learnt post-Carillion.
• Report of the Independent Inquiry into the Construction of the DG One Complex in Dumfries (April 2018).
• Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety (Dame Judith Hackitt, May 2018).
• Procuring for Value (Construction Leadership Council, July 2018).
• Construction Sector Deal (BEIS, July 2018).
• Off-site manufacture for construction: building for change (House of Lords, Science & Technology Committee, July 2018).

After reading all this – much of which, not surprisingly, is repetitive – I distilled the following key themes:

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