David Higgins is playing quite a canny game

Wed 26 August

Us hacks tend to term this mid-summer period as the silly season, where stories involving furry animals, pictures of Brits sweating in the heat and what's hot or not in fashion dominate pages. If only it were so in 2006. The current Middle Eastern crisis is as hard as hard news gets. Add that to the continuing travails of our current government, the serious edge to the current weather conditions and today's re-emergence of the Stephen Lawrence murder case and you see no let up in the news agenda.

The same, clearly on a much different scale, is true of construction at the minute. There are major personnel exits from big contractors such as Bovis Lend Lease and Gleeson, a fire on a housing site raising fears about the use of timber on high rise buildings, the policy switch from the government on Home Inspector Packs and an expected one on the housing plans for the Thames Gateway etc etc. I've not even mentioned the Olympics yet.

The latter has been punctuated in the past couple of weeks by a slew of documents from client the Olympic Delivery Authority on the workload, from guides to health and safety and procurement to this week's issuing of the tender for the stadium itself and an amended timetable for the construction schedule. What to make of it all?The fact that client in chief David Higgings is being cagey on costs is hardly an amazing suprise. He's playing quite a canny game - wanting innovation and ideas yet stressing that he as a client will need to be clear on what he wants. Surely there has been enough recent examples of construction cock-ups for clients to avoid potential pitfalls. Whilst journalists often rejoice in schadenfreude when things go wrong I for one will be thoroughly depressed if things go pear-shaped this time.

The interesting issue remains that of the programme management role, or the quasi-management contractors as many see it. Firstly the decision to issue the tender documents for the stadium ahead of announcing the successful PM consortium appears unusual. Are contractors such as Laing O'Rourke going to shy away from the stadium scheme as they are still in the running for the overall Olympics package?

Some leading players I've spoken to reckon the programming role has already been decided on. An intruiging thought, especially after the oft-trotted out theory on the overbearing influence of Bechtel in political circles was reintroduced by the Observer last weekend. Given John Prescott's recent cowboy incident even a suggestion of closeness between new Labour and the private sector could be extremely damaging.

Unfortunately this theory is bollocks. As our story today reveals, bids have not even been submitted as yet for the PM position, with a decision not expected until mid September. But it's an interesting parlour game to play - name a consortium that doesn't have a potential conflict of interest. The aforementioned Bechtel is a firm shrouded in mystery, hence rather wild rumours circling their almost voodoo powers in picking up major work (Jubilee Line Extension, West Coast Main Line, National Physical Laboratory) from the present administration. How about the Bovis Lend Lease/Capita Symonds team - the former's boss was one David Higgins, the Olympics client. Laing O'Rourke/Mace? The former gave advice to the initial Olympics bid. That leaves the Amec/Balfour Beatty team, which doesn't appear to have much historical baggage with the job or the client. It's inevitable with a job this size that most firms involved have some baggage. No doubt the clear-sighted Higgins will look beyond such issues.