Osborne construction MD made redundant

The construction MD of £300m turnover contractor Osborne has been made redundant as part of a drive to reduce costs, the firm confirmed this week.

Osborne chief executive David Fison confirmed that construction and homes managing director Keith Taylor, who joined Osborne from Mansell in August 2010, had left the company as part of a bid to “streamline” management at the firm.

The move echoes that taken by contractors including Morgan Sindall and Laing O’Rourke, where pressure on workloads has led to the removal of management tiers in order to cut overheads.

Taylor was brought in to bring together Osborne’s homes, education, healthcare and commercial units under one head as part of a management reshuffle. The change at Osborne means that the individual sector heads will now report in to board level executive director Phil Shortman.

The move is despite Osborne recording pre-tax profits at a four year high last year. Fison said: “Keith did a great job, especially in a difficult market, but it became clear that the extra stage in the reporting line that his role created meant that we were not operating as efficiently as we could.

“It was therefore decided, with regret, that to streamline the process, our sector heads would report directly into board director Phil Shortman from now on instead.”

In October Morgan Sindall confirmed that the firm’s northern director Danny Murray and southern director Stephen Scard would both leave the business in order to trim costs.