The Specialist Engineering Contractors' Group has picked up the baton from the now defunct CLG
Rudi Klein is busy proclaiming the croissants we are about to devour as the best in London. The chief executive of the Specialist Engineering Contractors' (SEC) Group is well known for his customary enthusiasm for the task in hand, be it the choice of pastries or his ongoing battles to improve the lot of m&e contractors.

Worries that the lobbying power of the specialist contractor would diminish with the recent demise of the Constructors' Liaison Group (CLG) have proved unfounded. The SEC Group has strengthened its team with the addition of former CLG stalwarts John Harrower and John Nelson as president and executive secretary respectively; they join Klein and chair Trevor Hursthouse in the battle for a more equitable future for contractors.

The SEC Group has simply picked up where the CLG left off and already boasts two major initiatives since its parting of the ways with the National Specialist Contractors' Council, its former partner in the CLG, at the end of June.

First up is a major breakthrough in the battle against retentions with the announcement that the Trade and Industry Committee is to carry out an inquiry into the use of retentions in the public sector.

Time is clearly running out for those that wish to abuse subcontractors via retentions. The inquiry follows two Early Day Motions in the House of Commons and as many as one third of all MPs are said to be in favour of abolishing the out-dated practice.

Rudi Klein is confident that progress will be made, and soon: "We would like to see a recommendation that all public sector contracts are let without retentions sometime in 2003," he says.

Klein and his colleagues at the SEC Group are busy collating evidence of retentions abuse to submit to the inquiry. Some of it will leave the Committee convinced that retentions are often used as little more than a means to enhance cash flow. "Local authorities use monies to invest in the market and fund other projects," says Klein. "It is financed by those at the bottom of the chain who are least able to do it and corrupts the industry's ability to perform as it should."

The SEC Group's evidence will draw heavily on this financial burden to the many small businesses that make up the industry. The Group has enlisted the help of the Small Business Service and the Federation of Small Businesses in its campaign. "I've had one example of it taking one firm 12 years to recover £700 from a client," says Klein.

Abolishing retentions in the public sector is just the first part of SEC's three-stranded strategy. The second would see the inquiry recommending that the Government insists on the use of qualified firms in the public sector and the third would see the setting-up of an inquiry into the lack of protection for m&e contractors from upstream insolvency.

Given that retentions are supposed to be there for a good reason, ie as an incentive to contractors to avoid or eliminate defects, the SEC Group's submission to the Trade and Industry Committee will focus on those clients that are getting on famously without retentions. Public sector clients such as Defence Estates, the NHS and the Highways Agency have joined private sector procurers such as Tesco, John Lewis, Slough Estates and Stanhope in doing away with retentions.

The solution that these progressive clients have adopted are all variations on a theme: partnering, integrated teams, call it what you will, but the outcome is the same. "Demonstration projects have shown that you can reduce defects by teamworking," says Rudi Klein.

Which brings us neatly to the SEC Group's own bit of integrated teamwork and the second major initiative of the summer: SEC's formation of the Specialist Engineering Alliance.

Where the CLG had sought to form allegiances with other specialist contractors, the SEC Group has looked to like-minded bodies across the engineering sector: the Association of Consulting Engineers; the Building Services Research and Information Association; the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers; and the Federation of Environmental Trade Associations.

We would like to see a recommendation that all public sector contracts are let without retentions sometime in 2003

The Alliance will focus on the improvement of the industry as a whole and so improve the profitability of the m&e contracting sector. "The SEC Group is only part of the picture," says Klein, "so we've pulled in the whole team to look at modernising ideas and to start addressing how we can improve the industry's performance."

The Alliance plans to meet three or four times a year with task groups taking forward particular initiatives. The SEC Group hopes to welcome others, particularly client organisations, to the fold in the near future.

So what's on the agenda? At the heart of the Group's ideas is the concept of integrated teams; the Alliance believes that the idea of integrated teams and collaborative working will help to eliminate waste within the sector. "Take drawings, for example," says Klein, "if we improve electronic communication among the team, we can avoid duplication and reduce the number of drawings. And if you improve the situation with drawings, you will improve defects and reduce conflict."

The Alliance wants to develop new payment mechanisms to underpin collaborative working. It also sees the need to develop and support education and training aimed at helping firms to operate as part of integrated teams.

Also lacking is a clear and focused research and development policy for the sector. "The industry's record on investment is poor," says Klein. "We need a strategy for r&d for the next ten years."

The group is not ignoring the importance of tackling the industry's health and safety problems. "Health and safety should improve if some of these initiatives come to fruition. As much as 60% of site accidents are down to design decisions made before construction has started, so integrated teams will start to address that," says Klein.

You may have noticed that integrated teams is the common theme here; not surprising given the SEC Group's prime role in the integrated teams task force on the Strategic Forum for Construction. The Forum has been working on the Accelerating change report, the successor to Egan's seminal Rethinking construction document of 1998.

The final report is due to be released in the middle of September but the findings were well documented during the recent consultation period (see linked story, below).

The Forum would like to see 20% of construction projects (by value) undertaken by integrated teams by the end of 2004, rising to 50% by the end of 2007. While public sector clients are helping to edge nearer this target by greater use of PFI, Prime Contracting and Design and Build contracts, an integration toolkit will be produced to help smaller clients understand the benefits of collaborative working.

The Forum is also recommending revisions to the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations to accelerate progress towards integrated teams. "There will be a carrot and stick approach with Accelerating change and the stick is the CDM Regs," says Klein.

Two further initiatives are central to the work of the Forum on integrated teams: project insurance and payment security. The SEC Group would like to see insurance products made available to underwrite the whole team. "Policies often overlap, wasting billions and detracting from teamworking," says Klein. "Insurers are supportive and we hope to get Zurich interested in a trial."

On payment security, the SEC Group would like to see KPIs for payment introduced to benchmark best practice and a study into the impact of insolvency law and practice on supply chains.