Here is what Uncle John has to say: "1999 National Construction Week offers the industry the opportunity to show itself at its best – to demonstrate what can be achieved by the most innovative. I am particularly keen to see the industry shed its adversarial image, improve its record in training and health and safety, reduce waste in all its forms and deliver on budget, on time, every time.
"By organising an event in National Construction Week, you too can play your part by showing what the best can do. By working closely together, we can create the world-class industry that Sir John Egan and the construction taskforce envisioned, and Britain deserves." Can you see what's going on here? Latham went on about getting this adversarial industry to shake hands. Egan is just about on the same tack, and now Prescott is wagging his finger at those argumentative disputomaniacs with a lousy record in training, health and safety and building. Bloody cheek, that's what I say.
Let's get something straight. The quality of work in the construction industry is first class. The quality of finish, of structures, of design and of workmanship is the best in the world. The rows, and there are oodles of them, are not about workmanship. The rows are about all the changes of mind that take place during the building process.
Get this straight, too. The job starts out at one price but it will never ever end up at that price. What's more, the job will be scheduled to finish next quarter day but will never ever end up finished then. The reason is that the British builder will always allow his customer to introduce variations. Then, of course, there is a row about the costs, the knock-on effect, the knock-out blow to the schedule. And if – I repeat, if – there is a row about quality, it is often caused by putting the blokes on site under huge pressure to work in a scrum for long hours. Fed-up blokes get fatigued and frustrated. The best of men do bad jobs under pressure. So, all you high-flying important people, stop knocking British building. If any game I know has a rotten, adversarial image, it is that lot in parliament.
OK, I accept it might be a good idea to have five days when we swank about building. And OK, if you want to link the swanking to better relationships, let's tell everyone how we now work together for success, not failure.
So, on Monday 19 April, the theme is improving performance. How? Here is an idea. The week is sponsored by "the big 23" – the largest building contractors in the UK. Now then, their subcontractors get fed up that some of the big 23 refuse to use standard form subcontract documents without fiddling those forms. The subbies keep quiet, of course, but, oh, Uncle John, it leads to deep resentment and that's where your adversarial attitude starts. Latham and Egan know that. So, on that day, the big 23 will renounce the amendments to standard forms of subcontracts. That's a good start to the week.
On Tuesday, the other sponsor members will not only renounce fiddled standard forms, but bin all their in-house homemade subcontract forms. And, on Wednesday, we will have a party to celebrate how this huge advance will improve performance, eliminate waste of time and energy and get people working together. These forms aren't needed now because the UK ethic is to work together. All you 23 agree, don't you? The theme for Thursday is innovation through the growing use of technology, and the theme for Friday is to correct misconceptions about construction. Site visits should be organised to persuade the community that this industry isn't uncaring and insensitive, noisy, dirty or dangerous.
So, get out your bunting, banners, balloons. Let's have a hell of a week. We've binned form-fiddling. Instead, we are friends. Uncle John will give the party.
Postscript
Tony Bingham is a barrister and arbitrator specialising in construction.
