John Hobson, director of the Construction Directorate at the DETR, echoed Alan Milburn’s statement, saying that the Treasury’s Achieving Excellence plan showed that the government was taking on board the recommendations of the Egan report.
He said: “We find this exciting because it shows we have been tapping into Rethinking Construction and shows a joined-up government in action.” Hobson added that construction’s main problem was its failure to satisfy its customers, but that the Treasury’s targets and the Movement for Innovation would help contractors to improve their product.
Hobson said the movement was already showing results, and will be looking for more demonstration projects in July.
Hobson also stressed that the government was in the process of introducing resource accounting, which emphasises the whole-life cost of a building rather than the one-off capital cost.
