Infrastructure delivery: time to think again?
- robball6
- 15 minutes ago
- 2 min read
It’s been an interesting week of reading for those of us working in the infrastructure sector. Last Wednesday, James Stewart’s review of HS2 was published, followed closely by the Government’s 10-year infrastructure strategy.
The first report says that the industry isn’t in a fit state to deliver major infrastructure projects, while the second promises a nice fat pipeline of projects over the next decade, with ‘at least’ £725 billion of funding for the Government over those 10 years. The Government’s soon-to-be-published Infrastructure Pipeline promises to set out what the projects will be.
The Stewart Review would make for interesting reading, were it not for the fact that the meatiest section, which covers the Main Works Civil Contracts (MWCC) has been redacted ‘for commercial reasons’. We are left to guess at what Stewart might have said from other hints in the report.
Like many before him, it seems that Stewart is questioning the structure of the UK construction industry. In a section in the report on wider lessons, he says:
“This Review demonstrates that HS2 stretched the civils supply market beyond its capacity. It also shows that the structure of the UK construction market, with Tier 1 suppliers commonly relying heavily on outsourced design and sub-contracting to Tier 2 and 3, has shortcomings.”
There are many other findings in the report which could be useful for any construction sector client planning a project. Here’s some that we took away:
· Projects need appropriate governance structures, and probably ones that are different from those of the parent organisation
· Client teams need to be properly resourced and have the right capability. Employing people on the books is better than using consultants.
· Don’t rush out to tender before a project is sufficiently progressed; proper preparation prevents poor performance.
· Signing a partnership agreement means nothing. Working in partnership is not easy and requires maturity on both client and contractor side.
· Late changes cost lots of money; avoid them.
The Stewart Review does acknowledge some of the wider challenges that HS2 faced, which will be very familiar to anyone procuring construction projects in a government setting. Namely, how changing political leadership messes with decision making, programme and scope and how global factors have impacted on the cost and availability of materials.
Stewart calls on the Government’s newly formed National Infrastructure & Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) to conduct a review of the construction sector to look at what needs to happen for the demands of the infrastructure pipeline to be met. Will this lead to structural changes which will allow lower tier contractors to deliver better value for clients? We can hope. But those of us old enough to remember the many construction reviews of the past – Latham, Egan et al – won’t be holding our breaths.
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