The new Construction Leadership Council will be jointly chaired by the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and Sir David Higgins, Chief Executive of Network Rail.
Members of the Council include:
Rt Hon Vince Cable MP, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, co-chair
Sir David Higgins, Network Rail, co-chair
Rt Hon Michael Fallon MP, Minister of State
Mark Clare, Barratt Developments
Louise Clarke (CIRIA), 2050 Group
Geoff Cooper (Travis Perkins), Construction Products Association
Paul Golby, EPSRC
Iain Gray, Technology Strategy Board
Peter Hansford, Government Chief Construction Adviser
Terry Hill (Arup), UKTI Construction Sector Advisory Group
Steve Hindley (MIDAS), CBI Construction Council
Paul Kavanagh (Imtech UK), Specialist Engineering Contractors Group
Kevin Louch (Stanford Industrial Concrete Flooring), National Specialist Contractors’ Council
Judy Lowe, Construction Industry Training Board
Liz Male, TrustMark
Adrian Penfold, British Land
Tony Pidgley, Berkley Group
Jack Pringle (Pringle Brandon Perkins + Will), Construction Industry Council
Mike Putnam (Skanska), Green Construction Board
Neil Sachdev, Sainsbury’s
Paul Sheffield, Kier
Geoffrey Spence, Infrastructure UK
Anna Stewart, Laing O’Rourke
James Stewart, KPMG
Steve Murphy, UCATT
Mark Wakeford (Stepnell), Construction Alliance
Andrew Wolstenholme (Crossrail), ERG/IUK Joint Steering Committee
Am I seeing things, there is not a single core design team professional group represented on there RIBA, CIBSE, IStructE.
Are any of the people on that list Architects, CIBSE Engineers, Structural Engineers or Quantity Surveyors/Project Managers. Hard to tell from the roles and descriptions given.
Jack Pringle, although listed as CIC, is an architect and ex-RIBA president. Sadly the only one on the list I can see though. Such contractor heavy list really doesn’t do justice to the ambition of the strategy targets – it is design decisions that have the biggest impact on capital costs & running costs and GHG/CO2 emissions. Contractors are simply not the best part of the delivery team to make design decisions for several reasons (no matter how talented the individuals are) – primarily around when the decisions need to be made, the holistic context the decisions need to be made in and the profit conflict for those doing the building.
Agreed Elrond. Of course design of buildings is not the Councils role as Su has mentioned on twitter. However it is within the design process that the true understanding of buildings begins. Followed of course by the construction and occupancy ultimately by FM and the client. For a council of leadership experts to omit almost entirely the professional design element of the supply chain is quite bizarre.
I will say one thing about surrounding yourself as a client with Contractors , they are very good at telling you exactly what you want to hear, the habit of work winning is embedded,understandably. This will sit well with Ministers who are inexperienced in our industry but want to hear phrases such as 50% reduction in capex & opex etc etc without either of them actually understanding how or even if that might be achieved.
Thanks for the comments, both.
I don’t know, but I think this isn’t the full list. Will try and find out more.
Also need to look at the strategy document and the terms of reference of this group. There’s clearly some buzz about professionals and SME’s not being properly represented, but Peter Hansford also said that engagent with the group would work through the ‘umbrella bodies’ such as the CIC.
On the other hand I was very impressed with some of the participants in the group who were speaking – Kevin Louch of the National Specialist Contractors’ Council and Mike Putnam of Skanska as two examples. I’m impressed at what Kevin said (very down on the facts of the matter) and what Mike has done with equality in the workplace. I think they will be good on the group. The question is, what is the group really for, beyond the overarching ‘driving forward the results’ type of objective?