The problem with reforming construction professions is knowing where to start – and whether government is ready to go first

Oh, to be young again and just starting out on a career in construction. Granted, I’d be caught in a contest between climate change, AI and an ever-growing number of hostile states to see which could kill me first - but then over the hill comes salvation in the form of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government with an offer to help me “thrive”.

That is the promise of the call for evidence by the department on the future of “the professions, trades and occupations” working in construction - and as big a job creation scheme for civil servants as I’ve seen since the “one in, two out” approach towards regulatory control introduced by the coalition government in 2010, and then abandoned.

I don’t spend time thinking it’s the government’s job to help me thrive, beyond hoping they might create some macro-economic stability (and wouldn’t that be something?) and resist the temptation to keep putting obstacles in the way; but the offer is too tempting to ignore, so one reads on.

A target-rich environment for reform

Ostensibly, it seems that the route to thriving is, once again, industry improvement. Anyone who has spent a career (or maybe just a week) in construction knows that the industry is dysfunctional, so nobody is arguing that there isn’t a problem: looking for things to fix is what the military calls a “target-rich environment” but that very richness is the problem.

The paper (which is well written and which, if one were just starting out, would be yet another useful summary of the problem, with a post-Grenfell twist) illustrates just how vast the landscape is, with references to every kind of construction, the extended cast of characters involved, the variety of competencies required and the stages through which each project has to progress, with different actors and competencies at each stage.

It also notes how many other interests are involved beyond the business of actually designing and building a project, ranging from education to insurance, and it addresses questions (no fewer than 79 of them) to all of the above.

This threatens to be what the civil service calls a Christmas tree. Once you’ve decided to buy a tree (or have decided that the taxpayer should buy a tree), there is no limit to the number of ornaments you can hang upon it - and if you’re looking for a tree with almost infinite possibilities for ornament, then the construction industry is a cracker.

Everybody involved in industry reform is familiar with the constant cry of “it’s complicated” too often marking the end of a conversation rather than the beginning of the new thinking 

Changing systems is, however, complicated, with every move potentially having a ricochet effect elsewhere in the system. Recognising this can, however, result in paralysis by analysis - and everybody involved in industry reform is familiar with the constant cry of “it’s complicated” too often marking the end of a conversation rather than the beginning of the new thinking that the Grenfell Tower Inquiry called for. The trick is therefore to break down the steps towards reform so that progress can be made in some parts of the system but, critically, with adequate foresight to avoid unintended consequences - and subsequent change of the kind we’re already seeing in building safety regulation and the regularly repeated view from government that changes already introduced don’t go far enough.

So, the need is for focus. Notwithstanding the reference to reform of the whole built environment system, the paper tells us that government’s focus is on skills, behaviours and accountability. It is hard not to read this as meaning that the focus is on additional regulation, and it is worth remembering that the government has three relationships with the industry. It is its sponsor, its principal client and its regulator. MHCLG only leads on the last of these, and it is noticeable that there is no reference in the call for evidence to other government departments being engaged. There are bound to be tensions, there always are – between supporting the industry and regulating it, between getting things done and seeing them done safely, but these are tensions for government to resolve.

Another point of focus, for all the talk of government and industry working in partnership, should come from clarity as to what government’s role should be in developing and delivering a future strategy and what might better be left to the industry. To me, this remains an unresolved aspect of system design, and it is starting to intrude into every conversation about regulatory reform.

With that in mind, here are three questions for government to ask itself as it addresses the tangle of answers it is likely to receive to the 79 questions.

What levers does government actually have?

First, what realistically might government do with the answers, given the levers they have to pull and the conflicting political pressures that will need to be accommodated?

For example, many of the multiple-choice questions relate to the levels of competence required at various stages of a project and ask whether they are properly understood and consistently applied. If the answer that comes back isn’t generally “No” to both questions, I would suggest a recount; but if it does, what does government do next? Government cannot be expected to know how to identify the skills and experience required in every aspect of producing a building that meets their aspiration of being “safe, high-performing and sustainable”. So how specifically can and will they work with those in the industry who do have that knowledge? And how will they work together to accelerate the recognition of standards which give some assurance to those who employ all of those professions and trades that they are meeting their own duty to employ competent people?

The question for government is therefore where proportionality lies between regulating everything and regulating only those things where the risks and consequences of failure are serious

And if and when such a standard has been defined, who will “own” that standard and effectively control access to the market; and what will be the sanction for those who still operate without the requisite qualification? There will be no shortage of responses to the call for evidence that insist that protection of the public will depend upon certain functions being reserved for those who do possess the necessary competence - which of course the same respondents will claim to possess; but this will have a significant impact both on the resources available to the industry to deliver its programme and the prices it will charge. The question for government is therefore where proportionality lies between regulating everything and regulating only those things where the risks and consequences of failure are serious.

There is also a particular challenge for government in deciding just what its attitude is towards professional institutions. On the one hand, the institutions have been regarded in the past as instruments of restrictive practice and undeserved special treatment, and the rolling back of the power and influence of the professions has been the result of a rare concord between Mrs Thatcher and the Left in opposition to the idea of professional privilege. The characteristics of a profession, and specifically set standards of competence and behaviour, do however demand a formal structure that ensures that they are met.

Here is the rub, though: if membership of a professional institution brings additional regulatory burdens and greater accountability, why would you join? The only effective answer I can think of is that joining also brings certain privileges - the most obvious of which is that areas of the market are protected as the exclusive preserve of a recognised professional body. Just as for the trades, though, there is a host of issues to be addressed first, not all of which will have a wholly benign outcome and some of which might not be welcomed by the professions themselves.

Who will enforce the new regime?

The second question for government is how a potentially radical new regime will be enforced and by whom? A major lesson from the product testing review was that there had been virtually no enforcement at all of regulations that had been in operation for more than a decade.

Learning the lessons of a properly enforced system would be a sensible precursor to designing a new one

A system that has never been enforced has never really been tested, and learning the lessons of a properly enforced system would be a sensible precursor to designing a new one.

At the moment, all questions about enforcement tend to be answered by reference to the Single Regulator - the great sink into which MHCLG is depositing accountability for a host of things that haven’t gone so well to date, but the creation of an empowered Single Regulator is still about two years away. In the meantime there are plenty of duties arising from the Building Safety Act (although, curiously, “a broader review of the dutyholder regime” is excluded from the Call for Evidence, when building on those duties should surely be a founding principle of further reform) which, if actively but proportionately enforced, might start to encourage the industry to believe that duties of competence, cooperation and compliance mean what they say, and that ignoring them has consequences.

Will government practise what it preaches?

The final question is both a test of government’s wider commitment and a useful lens through which to view proposals for reform. It is to ask whether the government will invariably adopt those proposals in its own practice. If it’s going to set out to teach the industry and its clients about competence, behaviour and accountability(ideally whilst ensuring we can all thrive), it could surely do no better than start with its own suppliers and create the conditions in which they can do their best work.

Whatever it thinks clients should do, it should do. Whatever it thinks its supply chain should be and do, it should require. No ifs, no buts. This will call for skills and habits that they currently lack - or which, in the words of the Call for Evidence, they apply “very inconsistently” but once it has healed itself, government can perhaps be taken seriously as physician to us all.

Paul Morrell is the former chief construction adviser (2009-2012) and lead author of an independent review into construction product testing. The call for evidence began on 20 May and runs until 12 August.