Just when you might have been excused for imagining that the discredited Private Finance Initiative (PFI) was dead as a construction procurement route, up it pops again.
Blog and Comment
Procurement opportunity must be grasped
Procurement related guidance and advice has been coming thick and fast in recent weeks. Almost hidden away at the end of the announcement about housing safety measures announced in Parliament by UK Secretary of State Michael Gove in January was publication of a new guidance document titled Collaborative Procurement Guidance for Design and Construction to Support Building Safety.
Construction called to perform on net-zero plans
The construction industry will be at the centre of developments over the next generation to combat the climate change emergency; that much must now be clear after the COP26 meeting in Glasgow.
Combatting climate change could also boost procurement skills
Much is happening on the climate change battle front, and the UK has pitched itself into the front line with wide ranging commitments to achieve net zero carbon by 2050, such as having all of our electricity to be ‘clean’ generated by 2035. This stance will attract worldwide attention with the COP26 United Nations Climate Change Conference heading for Glasgow in November.
Construction pipeline promises much
Government’s latest National Construction & Infrastructure Pipeline detailing public sector procurement plans for the next ten years was released in September, representing the highest level of public sector infrastructure investment ever.
Report highlights need for procurement overview
It would be hard to find evidence of anything good that came out of the collapse of Carillion; it was in fact an unmitigated disaster that will resonate deeply within the construction industry for years to come, and around which legal actions are still in the offing.
Contracts need risk management
The headline news from the most recent Arcadis survey of global disputes is that the sums involved in disputes have more than doubled but the number of disputes has stayed about the same. Disputes are being resolved faster at an average of 13 months compared to 15 last year, and the UK is maintaining its lead in speedy dispute resolution, taking only 10 months on average.
Toxic and dysfunctional industry awaits its revolution
The Times gave more space to construction and its problems in a series spread over three days in May than the industry has probably ever received at one go from a national newspaper. None of it was good.
Derailment inquiry exposes risk management shortfalls
A great divide exists between those who take proactive action to prevent undesirable events and those who just muddle along and wait until the bad thing happens before belatedly doing anything about it.
A bank that doesn’t go far enough?
One thing that can be confidently said about the newly announced National Infrastructure Bank (NIB) is that it won’t be funding very much of the procurement of the UK’s national infrastructure.