Has anyone asked the contractor?

First published on LinkedIn in June 2020.

This is a generic image taken from a Google search, and it always makes me smile. Presumably the contractor is the only one wearing a hard hat!

If I wanted to build an extension on my house I would talk with a builder.

If a client wants to build something more substantial, he talks to a principal designer, planning consultant, architect, cost consultant, structural engineer, M&E consultant, landscape architect and, most likely after contract award, possibly the contractor.

There exists a huge disconnect between the client and the contractor in the UK. It has been there for some considerable time, and despite the best efforts of the redrafting of the CDM Regulations in 2015, the situation isn't changing rapidly enough.

The writing of reports telling the construction sector to reform has become a cottage industry, with a new one appearing almost as often as new procurement portals. And now the large beasts are taking an interest, with McKinsey the latest to wade in to tell where we're going wrong and what we need to do.

I wonder how many of these authors have actually talked to a contractor before committing pen to ink (or fingers to keyboard)?

The construction industry exists under a curious business model, where the more risk you take on, the lower the attainable margin is; or, in other words, the further away from the client you are contractually, the harder it is to make money.

I read regularly about cost and time overruns on prolific schemes during the construction phase, but rarely about the affects that scope change and client/designer indecision both before and during the construction phase have had on a project. There seems to be an attitude that, irrespective of how much time/money is lost during the pre-construction phase, the contractor will make it up on site.

The mantra of construction being too expensive keeps being trotted out. Construction is broken in the UK, and those organisations who keep telling us so are part of the problem.

Everyone thinks that change is required, but also that everyone needs to change except themselves. And I don't discount contractors from this statement.

The solution will not be found in bricks and concrete.

The call for off-site manufacture to be adopted everywhere as a panacea to cure all ills is a false hope.

The solution will be found by talking openly and honestly; by taking and sharing responsibility at the right times; by simplifying and energising the supply chain; by collaborating, not blaming; by innovating and not being bound by what we have always done; and by having all parties aligned to the same objectives, contractually & financially.

And it all starts with the client.