Addressing construction productivity challenges in the East of England

“We don’t plan projects properly. We use schedules as contracts, and as weapons. Whether it is for tier ones, tier twos or anyone else on site,” said Shaun Pidcock, programme director on the Lower Thames Crossing. 

“This needs to change by really understanding what’s actually happening on site. We need to go more digital and data focused. We need to drive out waste.”

Pidcock was speaking at the Building the Future Think Tank’s first regional roundtable for 2024, which took place last month and focused on addressing the construction sector’s productivity challenges, with a particular focus on the East of England.

From the start of  last year, the Building the Future Commission was working to discover solutions and initiatives to improve the built environment. The commission published its final report earlier this year, but it has subsequently transitioned into the Building the Future Think Tank.

As part of the think tank’s fact-finding work, and in partnership with Constructing Excellence and supported by national sponsors Fenwick Elliott, Gleeds and RLB, we will this year once again be travelling around the country convening high-level roundtable discussions with experts in different regions to ensure that the commission hears from all corners of the UK.

The first of these, held last month, saw Building gather a group of experts who each have links to the East of England, before the think tank’s roadshow heads to the North-east, the North-west, the Midlands and Wales later this year.

This first stop of the year, in Cambridge, chaired by Building’s head of content Carl Brown, was all about what can be done to boost construction productivity in the region.

Structural barriers

Emma Maltby, technical director at Arcadis, said there are structural barriers limiting the sector’s ability to improve its productivity. “As an example, the push for the use of MMC, prefabrication and higher recycled content faces a number of constraints in terms of capacity. Felixstowe is at capacity, a lot of rail freight is at capacity, and we are saying transport can’t be by road. That’s a definite barrier.”

Peter Buist, Eastern regional partner at Purcell, also flagged issues around procurement and risk-sharing as a hurdle for productivity. He considers this particularly the case in the ever-growing retrofit and refurbishment sector, saying that in “retrofit, despite the inherent sustainability benefits that it delivers, there is the undeniable challenges that at stage three or four cost evaluation is almost double the new-build costs”. He said part of this is because contractors are being expected to pick up the added risk, meaning more collaborative methods of procurement could see these projects funded and delivered faster.

Alison Nicholl, head of Constructing Excellence, added to the procurement discussion by pointing out there are examples of good procurement boosting productivity. “You just need to look at the NHS and Procure23 when it comes to advocating for productivity and early contractor involvement. There are projects that were able to deliver the equivalent of 1,600 operations early thanks to the principles outlined in the procurement process used. That’s a real tangible example of what higher productivity can mean.” 

Cultural change

Many of the panellists said that to improve productivity it is imperative relationships within the sector are improved, with Pidcock adding that days can be lost purely due to a lack of communication, with time gains made on programmes often not being passed on. “If you have a five-day activity that takes three days, we often don’t start the next stage at day four; we are still waiting until day six as firms involved are not prepared for it,” he said. “If there was more of a culture around having fact-based discussions rather than emotional ones, you could build up time buffers for when you need them further down the pipeline.”

Christopher Chappell, operations director for construction at Mace, said this comes back to the fact that many contractors, whether they be tier ones, tier twos or those further down the supply chain, are afraid to communicate when they anticipate being ahead of the programme. “Fear of missing a timeline is a limitation,” he said. “I’d love to be in a place where we can share the best and everyone can share the benefits, but there is a fear of it being used against you if you miss.”

On this point, Maltby said she considered the most successful project she has been involved with from a collaboration perspective to be the 2012 Olympics, due in part to the dead stop which forced everyone to work openly and together.

Simon Tolson, senior partner at Fenwick Elliott, added: “For the small amount of disputes there were [on the Olympic projects], there was enough money that was chucked in by government to solve a lot of those problems. But this also did facilitate negotiation, and collaborative working on the human resourcing side, as there was a much more embraced view of ‘this is a common project we’ve got to deliver’.” He said this shows that more collaborative contracting is the way forward – but also demonstrates the importance of projects being properly funded.

For his part, Martin Hall, regional partner at Gleeds, said businesses and the industry as a whole need to look at how best to utilise our limited resources. “There are a number of different issues in getting staff to deliver, and we need productivity up. The question is: how do we get the best out of our staff? For me, the best way to maximise the productivity of staff is to find graduates or apprentices and train them up ourselves. That is the best way of ensuring skillsets.” 

The people aspect

“For me, addressing productivity is around people. Construction is all about people and relationships, whether that’s partnerships with clients, contractors or other consultants,” said Gavin White, director at Ramboll. “Problems with communication and risk management are barriers to productivity, which means we need to remove the adversarial nature of communications that often exists.” 

Continuing on the importance of how maximising the output of the people within construction is integral, White said that when considering innovative approaches, such as offsite manufacturing, it is important to think about using consolidation centres. “This needs big client involvement, but it will drive skills,” said White. “If we try and upskill in the East of England just for one project, you waste the skillset. If we have a consolidation centre that can be used nationwide, it ends up wholly upskilling the whole of the UK.”

Wai Yuk Lau, associate at AKT II, agreed on this point, equating the opportunities such consolidation areas could bring the sector to the opportunities Silicone Valley provides the technology sector in the US. “That will also attract more people into the industry, as they will see the parts of the sector that are not about working with a trowel and laying bricks,” he said. “They will be excited by the technology and the new innovative opportunities on offer.”

What the sector in the East of England wants

As the roundtable approached its end after an hour and a half of vigorous debate, the panel were asked to look ahead to the upcoming general election and to come up with the policies they would like to see introduced to boost productivity.

Responses (see panel above) included suggestions on improved visibility of pipeline, more efficient design and standardisation, and a re-evaluation of public-private partnership models of financing.

The key takeaways for the think tank when considering productivity in the East of England were on the significance of planning reform, the importance of maximising the skillsets of individuals within the sector, and improving relationships across the supply chain.