The chairman of the Specialist Engineering Contractors’ (SEC) Group wants to government to set up a statutory authority to regulate construction industry practice.
image: Open Government Licence v3.0
The Construction Index writes:
Following high profile industry failures including school walls collapsing, incendiary cladding being used to modernise tower blocks and the corporate failure of one of the biggest contractors, Trevor Hursthouse thinks it is time for some Singapore-style authoritarianism…
SEC Group is proposing the setting up of a new bureaucracy that it calls the Construction & Infrastructure Authority. As a government agency, it would replicate some of the powers associated with the regulatory authorities for sectors such as water, energy, telecoms and rail which were formerly in public ownership. It would also replicate some of the functions of promoting best practice currently handled by the Competition & Markets Authority and the Financial Conduct Authority…
The SEC’s vision is that the remit of a Construction & Infrastructure Authority would include oversight of the procurement practices of public bodies through challenging bad practice and highlighting strategies to deliver projects collaboratively with industry. It would intervene in cases of supply chain abuse and work to raise industry standards of technical capability through promotion of schemes for accrediting competent businesses.
