Industry leaders fear the government may abandon its plan to appoint a chief construction officer

The business and enterprise department (BERR) released a discussion paper about the role on 16 February, but Sir Michael Latham, author of the seminal Constructing the Team report, said he was “not impressed”.

Latham writes in Building this week that the delay in releasing the paper and its failure to address serious issues, such as the level of authority the incumbent would have, indicated that Whitehall did not want the role to be created.

He said: “The select committee’s report recommending the position be created came out last July and the discussion paper, which is only eight pages long, has taken seven months.

“I suspect the powers that be have decided that they do not want a chief construction officer, and they would prefer to do the job in their own way.”

Nobody with knowledge or gravitas will be attracted to the position

Graham Watts, CIC

Latham believes the body that wrote the paper, the Construction Sector Unit, had been pressured by “instruction from on high”.

Other industry figures voiced their concerns, too. Graham Watts, chief executive of the Construction Industry Council, said the paper had failed to answer questions about the position’s seniority. He said: “There’s a lot of unnecessary detail in the paper. Nobody with knowledge of the industry or gravitas will be attracted to the position described. The hopes and aspirations the industry has for this role are being dashed.”

Rudi Klein, chief executive of the Specialist Engineering Contractors’ Group, previously said: “Unless the person has the appropriate status, resources, and sufficient ‘teeth’, this position will be a waste of time.”