Zeroing in on zero retentions

Proposed legislation to protect retention monies in the event of insolvency will soon receive its second reading in the House of Commons and will then progress to detailed Parliamentary discussions in a committee stage, unless rejected by MP’s.

Read more

Stay calm and watch the carry-on

The proposed launch of a £30bn contractors framework could normally be expected to set pulses racing in any industry, with everybody keen to learn the details of the procurement process. When it is being launched by the Crown Commercial Service (CCS) however everybody stops holding their breath.

Read more

Carillion carnage masks PFI malaise

What the long-term fallout of the Carillion debacle will be is hard to predict, but it has at least shone a spotlight on the Private Finance Initiative (PFI), as well as the associated large, long term contracts that can bring contractors down if they go wrong.

Read more

More adjudicators needed

One of adjudication’s major attractions was supposed to be that it would provide a relatively cost effective as well as speedy route to freeing up cash flow logjams arising from disputes.

Read more

No end in sight to procurement woes

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) had barely started to recover from the severe mauling it was given in March by the High Court over the Magnox fiasco when along comes another shaming investigation into the same events. If anything the latest scrutiny, from the National Audit Office (NAO), is even more damning about government contract negotiating and management skills than the High Court was.

Read more

Big battalions battle looming?

Taxpayers ultimately foot the bill for public sector spending so it is no surprise that the Taxpayers’ Alliance has responded to widespread concerns with the problems afflicting procurement of large public sector funded schemes with a fairly damning report.

Read more

New risk assessment attitude rings changes

The implications of the Grenfell Tower disaster are obviously going to be felt in construction for years to come, and the inquiries, possible criminal prosecutions and civil actions will be capturing headlines outside the industry for a long time.

Read more

Time to refocus on quality

The Scottish schools scandal has featured on the timetable at the Scottish Parliament whose Education Committee was hearing evidence as we went to press as part of its inquiry into how so many schools could have been so shoddily built (see News).

Read more

Construction and lawyers face same wave of change

The Financial Times held its first Future of Construction Summit in May, a well-attended event at ICE headquarters in Great George Street. The sub-heading was ‘Driving productivity through disruptive innovation and collaboration’, areas where the industry is widely agreed to be lagging.

Read more

Procurement off the rails

Construction of what is billed as the world’s most advanced passenger railway and the backbone of the UK’s rail network – the HS2 London to Birmingham line – already looks like being bedevilled by the same lack of attention to procurement processes as other large scale UK projects.    

Read more