Your interview with Mike Davies, the new chair of the Strategic Forum, and his predecessor James Wates (20 July, page 36), refers to the role of the chairman rotating every year between the “three core member bodies”.

For the record, the core members, in addition to the three mentioned in the article, are: the Specialist Engineering Contractors Group, the National Specialist Contractors Council and the Construction Clients Group. The role of chairman will rotate between all members. Davies will be followed by a Construction Industry Council nominee, who will then be followed as chairman by a nominee from the Specialist Engineering Contractors’ Group.

The role of the forum is to realise the recommendations in the Accelerating Change report launched by Sir John Egan in September 2002. There were many targets in that report, and the key one – for 50% of the industry’s output to be delivered by integrated teams by 2007 – will not be achieved.

I am concerned at the reference to having “a new set of priorities”. The Accelerating Change report was historic. This was the first time the industry had agreed an agenda for making radical improvements in the way construction was procured and delivered. The government and clients also signed up to it.

We need to analyse the reasons for not achieving these targets and then focus on overcoming the barriers to change.

The forum is about delivery and, unless it does deliver, its continuance will become a waste of time for everyone involved.

Rudi Klein, chief executive, Specialist Engineering Contractors Group

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