Views

MPs need a guide to policy, not platitudes

SPARE A THOUGHT, if you will, for our hard-pressed MPs and parliamentary candidates. They've entered politics for any number of reasons: perhaps their starting point was ideological, or rooted in local issues, or it catalysed around the NHS or social justice. But in their pre- election hustings and post-election surgeries, they need to have a line on any number of complex issues beyond their personal experience. So what do they say to the construction

SME director complaining about lack of access to public sector contracts? What response do they offer the family at the bottom of the housing association's waiting list? How best do they advise the young trainee whose brick-laying diploma at the local college led precisely nowhere? If you're a typical MP, your responses will be drawn from the library of construction policy cliches. You might sympathise with the SME rather than advise on BIM adoption; the idea of lobbying the HA to pursue faster and cheaper offsite construction is unlikely to be top of mind; and you might give the trainee a little pep talk about the 182,000 new jobs the CITB tell us will open up by 2019, before advising them to apply for a job at the above-mentioned HA's new site. In other words, your responses would

be geared to supporting an industry- wide status quo: long and ineffi cient supply chains, conventional methods of construction, ineffective training

mechanisms and a sense that part of the industry's raison d'etre is to provide a high volume of jobs in traditional craft skills. The new CIOB Guide to the Built

Environment offers a correction to some of these embedded views, presenting our industry in a more updated light. It's a worthwhile project that should hopefully initiate, then develop, conversations between the CIOB and our elected representatives in the coming months. But the document is only the starting

point of a new drive to engage with the political process that goes beyond the 2015 General Election campaign and individual MPs' surgeries. Once we have a new government, there will be an ever-increasing range of policy issues where the CIOB, as the voice of qualifi ed, skilled construction managers, has a contribution to make. There's BIM, of course, and pursuing a multi-strand approach to training and education. There's the increasingly globalised world we operate in (highlighted by new vice president Paul Nash on page 8), and how about the implications of the "circular economy" on public procurement? It's not as if the CIOB can unilaterally

infl uence policy on these issues. But if it can do more to position and promote itself as a well-informed voice with sensible ideas to add, then the industry and membership should undoubtedly benefi t.

Elaine Knutt, editor More Construction Manager

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10 | SEPTEMBER 2014 | CONSTRUCTION MANAGER

Feedback

No brick crisis? Try ordering one Deian Hopkin, via website Whether it is perceived or not and despite statistics being bandied about, I would suggest that Francis Noble actually tries to procure some bricks (Is there a brick crisis, or isn't there? Online, 22 July). I work for a major construction company

and we are looking at bricks a year away and are redesigning buildings because of this. On a personal note I tried to procure some Ibstock Athena for myself — and was told there was a 12-month lead time. The main current issue as I'm told is

that many of the major housebuilders are booking millions of bricks in advance, thereby creating an artifi cial shortage. So in conclusion, Francis Noble may be correct in stating that the numbers of bricks are being produced, but you just can't get them.

H&S starts with correct PPE J Sandland MCIOB, via website From experience of safety audits and CDM, it is usually site behavioural problems, usually forced by non- friendly PPE designs, where PPE is a last resort in such circumstances, meaning operatives take occupational site risks (Calls to cut workplace silica follows HSE health 'blitz', online, 25 July). Usually due to time = money motivations on large sites when it comes closer to PC time! One frequently seen offender is county

council road operatives cutting slabs, I have noted.

Bring back Cycling Profi ciency N Jones, via website It is a shame that most councils have axed (or are axing) the Cycling Profi ciency Schemes that give young cyclists a grounding in road safety (Safe on streets, online, 16 July) . It is even more important, therefore, for private industry to take up the slack that this has created, by adopting initiatives such as CLOCS.