If you’ve seen a unicorn, you might think Egan has changed construction

A decade has past since Rethinking Construction enlightened us to the prospect of improving quality and efficiency within the construction industry by addressing five key drivers: committed leadership; focus on the customer; integrated processes and teams; a quality driven agenda; and commitment to people. Those were coupled with ambitious performance targets: for cost and waste reduction for example.

If you have a unicorn in your garden and believe the NEC contract is written in plain English you might, just, consider that the Egan report has reshaped the industry. I have never seen a unicorn, I think the NEC may have been translated from Latin and believe that most of the suppliers in the construction industry need a smack across the nose with a rolled up contract.

The public sector, particularly local authorities and the various arms of government, have been misled somewhat by central government advice (if it can be called that) and the hordes of management consultant academics who have sprung up to implement Egan. Much of the guidance produced by the proliferation of government-backed agencies is of no tangible benefit, being both confusing and far removed from the realities of the industry.

Using a system like Prince2 or setting up a project board does not deliver committed leadership. It delivers an audit trail to show a box has been ticked on a certain date. Formalised ‘partnering’ (speed dating for the construction industry) has further eroded the leadership in local authorities. Clients, advised by management consultants, avoid challenging suppliers because ‘it’s not really partnering’.

Most local authorities do not employ or train procurement staff, but simply promote up administrative staff to fill these roles. Such systemic weaknesses (not prevalent in registered social landlords) all make for a rather pleasant environment for our supply chain.

Suppliers are now being given long-term income streams; are not having to bid for work; are not having to comply with contracts and are approaching everything like it’s cost plus. And we are allowing them to do it in the name of improving the industry.

Suppliers routinely churn out marketing material advocating their partnering or green credentials often apparently supported by government agencies. It is easy to be seduced by these often baseless claims when someone from the Audit Commission demands you meet your efficiency quota. In addition, clients are not providing any form of exit strategy so that when the sales patter of the supplier’s business development director is found to be hype there is no way of getting rid of the contractor who is now embedded in your service delivery plan. The tail is wagging the dog.

There is a perceptible polarisation between larger and smaller suppliers. In one of our recent supplier selection processes involving 20 contractors it was obvious that the smaller firms were training significantly more or comparable numbers of people than were the larger outfits. It was also significant that their awareness and actual delivery in regard to sustainability issues was more developed than the larger applicants. Big is not necessarily beautiful.

References within Egan’s report to prefabrication and car production processes and so on have simply allowed anyone who has ever seen a wing nut to publish a paper on lean manufacturing. Off-site pre-fabrication of housing, however, significantly alters the cashflow profile of a job as piles of matchsticks in factories need to be paid for before arrival on site. How many public sector client’s are willing, or even able, to pay for goods in advance?

While early contractor involvement in a project delivers benefits at all stages and prefabrication is a valuable tool, the fact is that central government and the large contractors have not truly implemented Egan’s report, but used it to open a window and throw the baby, the bath and the bathwater out together. It’s a pity the management consultants weren’t in the bath as well.