Now we have a Trade and Industry Committee investigating the UK construction industry, including looking at employment and payment practices

Last week I mentioned that the Office of Fair Trading, over the past two years, has been carrying out an investigation into bid rigging by construction companies. Now we have a Trade and Industry Committee investigating the UK construction industry, including looking at employment and payment practices, UK dependence on imported labour and expertise, sustainability, and contract management. This is probably related to worries about the capacity in the industry to deliver on the government’s capital investment programme alongside large infrastructure projects such as the Olympics.

This week CIRIA tell us about ‘Bidding for Gold’, a networking event on the legal implications of partnering for SME’s who are interested in bidding for larger construction projects such as the Olympics.

Meanwhile UCATT were having a go recently, saying that builders are falsely claiming to be self-employed to take advantage of tax loopholes. They seemed to link this to the recent increase in the cost of the Olympics and the delays in completing the Wembley Stadium. This is challenged by Carl Whittaker of Qdos Consulting in an article sent to Buildingtalk which is included in this weeks newsletter.

Another contribution this week was from Andrew Gotch, one of the UK’s leading tax consultants, who highlight another imminent problem for contractors who turn over high numbers of sub contractors. With the complexities of the Construction Industry Scheme, which goes live this week, some contractors will struggle to keep pace if they continue using paper based systems or spreadsheets to operate.

Finally, a word of sympathy for those poor souls who invested in the Channel Tunnel construction project back in 1987 and have had precious little to cheer them since. Now their travel perks are being axed as part of the Eurotunnel financial restructuring. I think a legal challenge is quite likely but this maybe nothing compared with the reaction of French shareholders when more ‘restructuring’ unfolds.
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Gordon Brown has predicted that the UK economy is set to grow between 2.5% and 3% during the next two years

In his 11th and probably last budget as chancellor, Gordon Brown predicted that the UK economy is set to grow between 2.5% and 3% during the next two years. He claimed that this would be a faster growth than all other major economies in the world. So good news for UK plc.

We had a number of reviews of the budget sent to us at Buildingtalk - mostly looking at the impact on particular aspects of the construction industry of various measures. An example was Bryan Woodley, chief executive of the UK Timber Frame Association, who says that the shift in emphasis from ’stable to sustainable’, reflected in the budget, has helped the timber frame industry to achieve recent rapid growth. As a result timber frame housing starts last year grew at double the rate of all housing starts. The good environmental outcome was that the 50,000 timber frame units built in 2006 means a saving of 150,000 tonnes of carbon.

The response from Stephen Wise, market development manager at Knauf Insulation, was to highlight the inevitable increase in demand for insulation products coming in the wake of specific proposals such as grants of between �300 and �4,000 for pensioners installing insulation and central heating in their homes.

There were some words of caution from Institute of Plumbing and Heating Engineering who see the grants for household renewables as a potential doorway for substandard work. So they have begun work on drawing up a minimum competence standard in the area of solar heating and will follow this with standards for other green energy areas.

On a different subject, cartels are a particularly damaging form of anti-competitive behaviour. The Office of Fair Trading (OFT), over the past two years, has been carrying out an investigation into bid rigging by construction companies in England, and during this investigation 57 companies have been raided, and 37 companies have applied for leniency. As a result of the investigation, they have uncovered evidence of bid rigging in thousands of tenders with a combined estimated value approaching �3 billion. Serious penalties have followed including over �4 million for bid rigging in the roofing industry alone.

Now the OFT is making an offer to reduced financial penalty to all those implicated companies that have not so far applied for leniency but are willing to cooperate with the OFT in certain specific ways. So there is an offer you might wish to consider!
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At the end of last week the new Olympic budget was confirmed at £9.3bn

At the end of last week the new Olympic budget was confirmed at £9.3bn - a massive increase that was no surprise to anyone in the industry. Within this budget are construction costs of £5.3bn which includes building the venues and Olympic park, plus the infrastructure and regeneration work. So contract opportunities galore. It is still fantastic to have the Olympics coming to the UK and just to put a little perspective on the build costs, you may not have heard about the Athan Defence Training Academy project which is about to get underway in Wales. This giant joint training centre for the Army, Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force is likely to cost £16 bn - and no lottery money needed here.



We also heard that Foster has lost out to HawkinsBrown on the revamp of Parliament Square which was a surprise. I thought they were in poll position having made such a success of the recent changes to Trafalgar Square.



I will be visiting the National Homebuilding and Renovating Show when it gets underway later this week at the NEC. It is the largest show of its kind in the UK and fast becoming a significant showcase for new products including, for instance, architectural and landscaping products from Haddonstone which we feature in this weeks Buildingtalk newsletter.



Also featured is news from Dyno-Rod who are demonstrating their latest ‘no-dig’ technology developments at the 2007 Water, Sewerage and Waste exhibitions.



Ardex tell us about a new pocket Tile Fixing Guide which is also a point of reference when looking to solve a variety of tiling problems. SandP Coil Products launch their latest CD-ROM described as the ‘bible’ for everything to do with their heating products.



On the new products front, PolySteel launch ‘Insulating Concrete Formwork’ into the UK market. It claims to drastically reduces the time and cost of house-building plus improve energy saving, fire safety and recycling. Also, Wilo has a high-efficiency pump for thermal solar installations.



UK Timber Frame Association (UKTFA) launch Q-Mark, a quality assurance scheme for suppliers in the industry.



Finally, a plug for the latest petition on the Prime Minister’s E-Petitions website. This one demands ‘Professional Status for Engineers and Engineering’. The Institution of Structural Engineers (IStructE) is supporting this petition which calls for the term ‘engineer’ to be protected. Apparently, engineer Jon Jennings was spurred into action by what he perceives to be a ‘lack of respect’ for engineers at all levels of UK society, with ‘Car mechanics, plumbers and electricians commonly referred to as engineers’. The petition is now number 8 in the list of nearly 5,000 on the site.
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Construction firm Multiplex is finally handing over the keys to the new Wembley Stadium which is good news

Construction firm Multiplex is finally handing over the keys to the new Wembley Stadium which is good news. This six year project has suffered high profile delays and is way over budget. At one time Wembley was to stage the World Athletics Championship in 2005! On Thursday a safety certificate for the fire alarm system was issued and the final check will be the community day on 17th March when 60,000 local people will test the facilities. Let us hope all goes well so we can look forward to the FA Cup final at Wembley on 19 May. Despite all the problems, the stadium does look fantastic and will be a great showcase for architecture in the UK.

Following last weeks emphasis on sustainability in construction, we have had a number of interesting stories sent to us. I’ve included a selection in our newsletter.

For instance, Mitsubishi Electric has produced a free guide to the Code for Sustainable Homes - the new national standard for the sustainable design and construction of homes that the Government introduced in December 2006. On the products front, Ideal Boilers have a range of high efficiency A-rated boilers that will give developers maximum points towards achieving top EcoHomes ratings.

DuPont Building Innovations launch DuPont Energain, a radical new patented technology now available to the construction market for timber, steel and aluminium framed buildings. This thermal mass panel has valuable energy saving and temperature control properties that means a reduced CO2 footprint for buildings.

Ibstock also have a new product, Ecoterre Earth Bricks, that use recycled brick clay and are ideal for eco-buildings, having low manufacturing waste and very high recyclability..

Finally a word about CPD [Continuing Professional Development]. We regularly feature news of CPD events across the industry and have seen the gradual increase in use of the internet. Just this week we heard about elearning-training.com, said to be the world’s first e-learning training portal for the HVAC industry. Now web-based seminars, often called webinars are starting take off too. We are looking at ways that Buildingtalk can help these events reach a wider audience. Let me know if you would like to be part of this or you have a seminar or CPD event that you want the rest of the industry to know about.
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Last week London Mayor Ken Livingstone unveiled his climate change plan for London

Last week London Mayor Ken Livingstone unveiled his climate change plan for London, setting out to cut emissions by 60% within 20 years, and this week a major exhibition is due to open at the Building Centre in London. Called ‘Sustainable London: Addressing Climate Change in the Capital’, it will be looking at ‘what is a sustainable city?’ and suggesting solutions. As Andrew Scoones, Director of the Building Centre commented that “The development of low and zero carbon projects across London will accelerate innovation, creating shared knowledge on how to design and construct the kind of communities and buildings that will be essential to meet the long-term challenge of fighting climate change in urban areas”.

Last week I visited the ‘Innovations for the Built Environment’ Exhibition, also in London. The event included 90 conference or seminar sessions as well as being a great showcase for the industry. Though we heard how the construction sector is responsible for 47% of all UK carbon emissions and 100 million tonnes of waste each year, I was very impressed with the number of products and services which are providing greener choices. The Ecobuild conference, held during the exhibition, was entitled ‘Making sustainable construction happen’. With sustainability high on the agenda and impacting specifications across the industry, we are certainly seeing a significant response from suppliers.

Buildingtalk is keen to support all these products and services so if you have relevant news, project story or technical article, we will publish it for free, usually within a day or two of receiving it. This week, for instance we have had almost 200 new stories. A brief extract of some of them appears in this weeks newsletter with links to their full details.

These include an offer from HBXL to demonstrate how low cost software can help produce quotes and estimates in half the time and improve profitability; and Kingspan tell us how their frame sections can save construction time.

New literature includes a guide to modern steel windows published by the Steel Window Association, and a comprehensive technical guide to ‘common stairs’ from stairs manufacturer Jeld-Wen.

Forthcoming exhibition news includes Johnson and Starley showing their new generation of central extract ventilation systems at the PHEX exhibitions; and Floors-2-Go, launching new real wood, laminate, and vinyl flooring ranges at the Homebuilding and Renovating Show at the NEC in Birmingham later this month.

I look forward to hearing from you.
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