Kier being asked to look at ISG’s government jobs as firm takes on dozens of staff from stricken contractor

Kier has been sounded out about taking on some former ISG jobs left stalled by the firm’s collapse nearly eight weeks ago.

The FTSE 250 firm’s chief executive Andrew Davies also told Building it had taken on around 70 former ISG staff as well.

Davies said they were project-based employees and added the firm had been asked about taking over some ISG jobs in the public sector.

But he said: “Absolutely no private. We will not touch the private ones, it’s not our strategy.”

Jobs up for grabs include schemes for the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and schools work.

“It’s up to the clients to reallocate them. It’s a case by case discussion. If these contracts are in flight, we have to discuss with them how we complete them and the terms. These contracts are going to have to be relet by government per their procurement policies and practices and that’s up to them to decide.

“The only thing I would say is the quicker they do it, the better because what happens is the teams on these contracts quickly dissipate so you lose the practical and operational IP and also they deteriorate because of the weather.

“The lessons after Carillion [which collapsed in 2018] are that it takes a long time to resurrect some of these projects if they lay redundant for months and months.”

Last month, it was revealed the MoJ had opened up negotiations with Laing O’Rourke about carrying out ISG’s new build prison scheme in Buckinghamshire.

Along with Kier, Laing O’Rourke and Wates, ISG was one of four firms appointed to the New Prisons Programme that is intended to create 6,000 new places.

But ISG’s collapse into administration last month has meant that its appointment to build a 1,500 space category C “resettlement” jail near Aylesbury, next to the existing category B Grendon and category D Springhill prisons, will need to be to be carried out by another contractor.