The job that never started

The New Year soap opera surrounding Charles Kennedy as well as yet another crackdown on yobs by new Labour, launched this week, are unlikely to be dislodged from conversations in political circles or national headlines by somewhat drier backroom issues and details related to our industry. Yet scratch below the surface of a few recent headlines over Christmas and the New Year – more problems at Wembley stadium, the fresh delay over the new £1bn PFI Barts hospital – and the old issues of proper programming, costing and procurement rear their heads yet again.

The current inaction in many government departments – health and education in particular – must surely be traced back to such basic misjudgements made at the beginning of their cycles. Is the government allotting enough cash to meet its high expectations for quality/environmental standards for new projects? Are the predictions on life cycle costs and affordability of public buildings – admittedly a near impossible task – at all near the mark?

At a time when the wave of PFIs and schools for the future projects should be chuntering ahead there is constipation, which should be a major worry for Gordon Brown, if ever he does pick up the baton from Tony Blair.

Such fundamental issues are partly responsible for the slight drop in construction output last year, confirmed by the Construction Products Association’s latest report.

One reader memorably sums up 2005 as “the year of the job that never started”. One hopes the government will manage the backlog, but I suspect that until the basics are ironed out there will be more delays, reviews, rethinks ahead in 2006.