Select committe calls for "chief construction officer"

A select committee report into the construction industry has called for a Whitehall “construction champion” to oversee change and improve public procurement.

Peter Luff, chairman of the Select Committee for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (pictured), which wrote the report, said: “The model that came to mind was the chief scientific adviser. We need a person with access to the prime minister who can be a voice within government.”

Bsria, the contractors’ lobby group, supported the call in the Construction Matters report for a champion and urged government not to dither over an appointment.

Andrew Eastwell, Bsria chief executive said: “This report goes to the heart of the matter for construction innovation. We have only eight years to design, build and prove zero carbon dwellings and a scant decade to do the same for other buildings.

“We urgently need a champion to marshal the considerable skills, resources and goodwill that exists both in industry and government. We cannot dither in implementing the report's main findings.”

The call was one of a series of recommendations aimed at using the government’s position as the biggest construction client to bring about change in the sector.

This report goes to the heart of the matter for construction innovation

Peter Luff

It criticised departments for failing to engage with the supply chain early on, causing them to “miss out on efficiencies that would deliver a cheaper and better quality end-product” and called for an end to retentions in public sector projects.

“This will be a huge benefit to the specialist sector, often at the end of a long chain of retention-based contracts,” said Eastwell.

BSRIA also welcomed the committee’s strong support for greater use of post-occupancy evaluation (POE) in the public sector, but warned that POE by itself will not reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions, nor lead to more productive and healthy buildings.

“Post-occupancy evaluation is desperately needed in the government estate, to determine what sustainability measures are actually working, and which ones are actually helping to reduce carbon dioxide emissions,” said Eastwell. “At the moment we are only guessing that innovative design features are delivering the energy efficiency benefits assumed at the design stage. We need to know for sure.

“Apart from POE, we also need a process carrier to ensure that lessons are not only fed back into design and building teams, but also fed forward into improving the performance of future projects. “