The secret of success

There is an apocryphal tale that the 1998 Egan report nearly didn't mention housing. The story goes that John Prescott commissioned the construction taskforce to revolutionise the industry with a particular brief to improve procurement of the nation's housing – but in the first draft Egan's opus missed out the chapter on housing.

Whatever the truth, the reform of housing procurement soon made up for lost time. The Housing Forum quickly established a range of working groups and initiatives and a body of demonstration projects. The regulated world of registered social landlords and local authority housing departments yielded numerous clients willing to explore best practice, and construction firms keen to stabilise their workload and establish new working relationships were eager to join in. Together they pioneered a fresh view on partnering, procurement, respect for people and barriers to change.

We are now four years on from the Egan report and nearing next year's requirement for 100% of all housing association projects to be "Egan-compliant". It is worth reminding ourselves what Egan promised and to check whether it is being delivered.

The Egan agenda demanded a client-led reappraisal of the procurement process to integrate design, supply and construction. The promised rewards were savings in cost and time, reductions in defects and accidents and increased predictability, productivity and profit. Have they been achieved? And if not, why not?

In the consultation paper for Accelerating Change, the next Egan report, there are some impressive statistics about the performance of housing demonstration projects compared with the construction industry generally. For example, capital costs went up 2% across the industry during 2000, yet on Housing Forum demonstration projects they fell 4.4%. Construction time rose 1% across the industry during this period, but on Housing Forum demonstration projects it went down 7.4%.

As to defects, in the industry generally 53% of projects scored eight out of 10 or better in 2000 whereas Housing Forum demonstration projects achieved 71%. For client satisfaction with the product, 72% of projects in the general industry scored eight out of 10 or better, yet in Housing Forum demonstration projects they totalled 87%.

These figures are drawn from 127 Housing Forum demonstration projects representing a mix of new build and refurbishment. Such statistics make the case for pushing ahead with Egan compliance.

Many RSLs still believe partnered procurement is an experiment best kept to the margins of their programmes

So has everything been done to put Egan into housing procurement? Far from it. It is remarkable how, despite the evidence, RSLs and their advisers still believe partnered procurement is a social experiment best kept to the margins of their development programmes. Design and build is still the firm favourite for mainstream projects.

Limited resources in RSL development departments and a number of construction firms and consultants paying only lip-service to partnering, make this reluctance to embrace Egan partly understandable. But partnered procurement is common sense and it fits directly with all the aims of a responsible housing association. So how do we move matters forward?

Training – and its application on live projects – is the biggest issue. Egan's ideas need to be applied at site level and translated into real working relationships. It is amazing how many constructors still apply their partnering only at client/consultant level and have not really changed the way they plan and implement relationships with their own subcontractors and suppliers.

All too often, the result is that major Egan-inspired gains in cost, time and quality are lost because neither the client nor the constructor is willing to make wholesale changes to the way they conduct business.

We should all look again at the statistics mentioned above. Egan did not ask us simply to take a leap of faith – his report suggested radical changes to integrate the team and procurement process on the basis that the results should be measured at every stage.