Speaking about the corporate commitment to change, John Anderson, managing director of Bovis Europe, said: "We should establish a supporters' club, a group that would embrace everyone, not just contractors, and would change culture. We should act – not just talk.
"The future will depend on raising performance on every project, regardless of size or value," he warned. "Are the rest of the industry interested? They are. We need to embrace them too." Anderson's views were reiterated by Steve Johnson, construction and estates director of Dixons Stores Group, who urged firms outside the Movement for Innovation to adopt non-adversarial ways of thinking.
"The ethos needs to be standard," he said.
"A weak link in the chain of suppliers through a non-participating company is demoralising." The need to disseminate the innovations of demonstration projects and drive change was reinforced by Alan Crane, chairman of the Movement for Innovation board. Crane urged the trade organisations and institutions present to rise to the challenge of opening up the innovation debate by creating supporters' clubs, as described by Anderson.
Crane said: "The time has arrived to open the horizon and engage many, many more people, whether through trade organisations or the institutions. But we need some kind of structural framework." Crane suggested that a supporters' club could be set up to unite the organisations that write the GC Works contracts used by the government to ensure that new contracts reflect the changes being driven by the Movement for Innovation.
Treasury head of procurement Mike Burt added that, apart from implementing its own targets as a client, the government was developing a close relationship with the National Audit Office to facilitate its ability to become a better client, but also to stay within the NAO's strict rules on spending. "What we face is converting those outside the construction sector – the policymakers and especially the lawyers," he said.
Sir Martin Laing, who heads a sustainable construction focus group, called for demonstration projects to investigate sustainable construction. "Sustainability is at the heart of Egan," he said. " We need to be able to measure aspects of sustainable construction." He added that he hoped the next round of projects would provide examples of sustainable innovations, and that by the end of 1999 there should be benchmarks for sustainability.
