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CHAPTER 6
The Way Forward

81. The Task Force believes that the way forward to achieving the ambition of a modern construction industry lies in commitment. We are calling for:

• commitment from major clients to fulfil their responsibility to lead the implementation of our agenda for dramatically improving the efficiency and quality of construction;
• commitment from the construction industry to work with major clients to deliver the significant performance improvements that are possible, and offer these to the occasional and inexperienced clients; and
• commitment from Government to create and sustain the environment that is needed to enable dramatic improvements in construction performance, and encourage the public sector to become best practice clients.

Demonstration Projects

82. The major clients represented on the Task Force have agreed to take the lead and demonstrate their own commitment to improving performance by undertaking demonstration projects to develop and illustrate the ideas that we have set out. However, we do not want this to be an exclusive exercise: we invite other major private and public sector clients of the construction industry, together with the constructors, designers and suppliers that work with them, to offer similar projects on which together we can test and develop innovation. Our ambition is to make a start with at least £500 million worth of projects.
83. We propose that this core of projects and the housebuilding forum should become the basis of a movement for change and innovation in construction, established to pool experience among major clients and construction companies, develop ideas and drive improvement in quality and efficiency. We see such a movement as the principal way in which the construction industry can gain benefit from the lead being given by the major clients and grasp the initiative itself.

A Movement for Change

84. We envisage the movement for change as a group of people, possibly supported by a secretariat, who are committed to improving the delivery of their projects and the performance of their companies by applying the ideas that the Task Force has set out. The movement would be a network through which members could collaborate with each other in developing construction techniques and skills and exchanging ideas for increasing efficiency and quality. The movement should be open to all who are able to demonstrate commitment to:

• carrying out demonstration projects to advance the knowledge and practice of construction best practice;
• focusing on the needs of their clients in everything that they do;
• developing within their own organisations and throughout their supply chains a culture of trust and respect that encourages the contributions of all participants in the project process;
• training all their staff fully and providing them with conditions of employment and facilities that enable them to give of their best;
• measuring performance against other member's projects and project processes, and sharing the results with the wider industry;
• extending the benefits of improved performance to all their clients.

Knowledge Centre

85. There is an urgent need for the construction industry to develop a knowledge centre through which the whole industry and all of its clients can access to knowledge about good practices, innovations and the performance of companies and projects; in particular the knowledge gained from demonstration projects. It is important that the knowledge centre is objective, impartial and efficient. The DETR is already developing a Construction Best Practice Programme and we invite the Department to use this to create a national knowledge centre for construction.

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