Clash points

Clare lists five “big issues of common interest”. I wholeheartedly endorse her list. But there is a very practical problem in achieving them. How do we develop those issues so that they become realities? For example, we have talked about the use of standard unamended contracts for years. But nobody wants to use them, especially the national contractors who prefer their own bespoke arrangements whatever form the main contract is in.

Inroads into the use of cash retentions have been achieved through organisations representing specialist contractors (such as the British Constructional Steelwork Association, the Lift and Escalator Industry Association and the Federation of Piling Contractors), which have actually decided to do something about it. Their members have agreed not to offer cash retentions, but support from the main contracting fraternity for this action has been non-existent – although, admittedly, individual main contractors have been happy to accept bonds instead of cash.

Equally, the Construction Act was a practical and decisive way of dealing with contractual shenanigans. Clare’s view is that it has been successful and that this view is also echoed among specialist contractors. Why? Because it has helped to reduce abuse and manipulation in the payment process. No doubt it has also helped to reduce the money spent by the vast majority of firms in the industry chasing payment or dealing with “manufactured” disputes that result in payment being withheld. Therefore, if we both believe that it has been successful, we should want to clarify the act’s provisions so that, for example, it is beyond doubt that pay-when-certified arrangements and trustee stakeholder accounts (in contractual adjudication procedures) are ruled out.

I would even go further. The industry has not taken any notice of the codes of practice published by the Construction Industry Board, which lays down sensible procedures for tendering. I would be inclined to expand the Construction Act to deal with the tendering abuse that costs the industry millions of pounds each year.

Sustainable construction is about taking waste out of the system, and that includes economic waste. Reducing the costs associated with the tendering and payment procedures benefits the vast majority of firms in the industry as well as the industry’s clients. This, therefore, does not detract from Clare’s desire to have an industry in which there is co-operation, trust and teamwork. But all this has to rest upon firm and sensible commercial foundations.