The strategic forum is to launch its own key performance indicators to be used by clients in selecting firms.
Chairman Peter Rogers said there were likely to be five indicators to assess firms, including health and safety performance, training and skills, design quality, and meeting cost and time targets.

Rogers said the indicators would eventually be used to assess good and bad clients.

He said: "By making firms have their performance measured, compared and assessed to win work, it will make them raise their standards in all areas of their businesses."

He said companies would be forced to produce appropriate figures for clients on issues such as training and adherence to budgets. They would also have health and safety standards audited by external consultants.

Rogers added that the performance indicators would be set up in the next three months. They will be monitored by bodies such as the Health and Safety Executive.

Construction Industry Council chief executive Graham Watts said that the strategic forum would use the CIC's design measurement system called design quality indicators as a way to test the design quality of buildings. The DQIs were launched in July and are backed by the government and CABE.