How could anyone who cares about construction disagree with anything in the Construction Playbook? Why then do I, a practitioner with 31 years as a specialist M&E contractor, know that it will not realise the government’s ambition to “change our approach to delivery”?

Of the 48 signatories to the playbook, only one was a specialist subcontractor (as distinct from an “official”). Yet the supply chain typically accounts for about 80% of the cost of a project. Speak to any of them about collaborative procurement and they will tell you that nothing much has changed: they are still typically appointed on a price, screwed down as the main contractor seeks to recoup the losses from his decision to discount his margins to win the overall contract. Simply put, value has been sucked out of the asset to be provided by the supply chain.

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