Making Sense of Construction Improvement (Routledge, 2024) offers a critical evaluation of the construction industry improvement debate from the end of the Second World War through to the modern era. The book argues that understanding the past is essential for making sense of the present. Today’s practitioners must forever deal with the unintended consequences of previous policy decisions.
The book is unique in highlighting how the UK construction sector is continuously shaped and re-shaped in accordance with changes in the prevailing political economy.
In the aftermath of the Second World War, improving the efficiency of the construction sector was of central importance across a range of government policy areas. A broad political consensus in favour of demand management prevailed until the late-1970s. Sustained investment in public housing encouraged the development of industrialized construction techniques. There was also strong support in favour of direct employment.
Confidence in the quality of industrialized methods slumped following the Ronan Point collapse of 1968. The Poulson scandal of the early 1970s also damaged trust by revealing widespread corruption in the public sector.
The post-war consensus in favour of top-down state planning was further disrupted by prolonged industrial action. The national building strike of 1972 left a legacy of bitterness among employers. The perceived militancy of those involved provoked the subsequent widespread reliance on illegal blacklisting. The cover picture of the book speaks to the recurring rediscovery of standardization and prefabrication as supposed solutions to the industry’s productivity crisis.
Chapter 2. The dawn of enterprise
The election of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Government in 1979 marked the dawn of the ‘enterprise culture’. Thatcher focused on reducing trade union power and expanding the use of market mechanisms. Thatcher also imposed stringent spending restrictions on local authorities in response to the Poulson scandal. The advocated political philosophy was further characterized by the withdrawal of the state from any pretence at demand management.
The introduction of the ‘right-to-buy’ policy reshaped the public housing stock. Direct Labour Organisations (DLOs) within local authorities were further targeted through the introduction of compulsory competitive tendering (CCT). Government policy included an extensive programme of privatization, which subsequently gathered pace following the succession of John Major in 1990.
Together, the above reforms comprised a radical restructuring of the construction sector’s client base. The days of state-sponsored demand management in support of construction sector development were decisively ended. Debate continues regarding the extent to which the changes instigated by Thatcher were inevitable given the onset of globalisation.
Chapter 3. Leanness and agility in construction
The UK economy experienced extensive restructuring throughout the 1980 and 1990s. Notable privatizations included the utility companies, British Airports Authority (BAA), Property Services Agency (PSA) and British Rail. Privatization was routinely followed by the outsourcing of non-essential functions, leaving such clients considerably leaner and more reliant on external consultants.
Increased volatility of demand obliged contractors to adopt a strategic model of structural flexibility. Firms prioritized the ability to expand and contract painlessly in response to fluctuations in demand. The model was characterised by a diminishing appetite for risk and an aversion to fixed overheads. Hence the significant growth in the level of self-employment and other forms of contingent labour. Investment in training was too often seen as someone else’s responsibility.
In retrospect, the construction sector can be seen as a trailblazer for the modern gig economy. The fissured employment context continues to have adverse consequences for investment in skills and training. Indeed, it can be construed as a major cause of the current skills crisis.
Chapter 4. The improvement agenda takes shape
The late 1980s heralded the beginning of the modern construction improvement agenda. The Broadgate development in London famously piloted construction management (CM) as a procurement method. Broadgate was also celebrated for the adoption of prefabrication and off-site manufacturing methods, and for off-setting the responsibility for detailed design to specialist trade contractors.
Building Britain 2001 (University of Reading, 1988) pre-empted many of the recommendations which subsequently appeared in Rethinking Construction (Egan, 1998). Private sector clients became progressively more demanding as the rhetoric of improvement was fuelled by the prevailing ethos of customer responsiveness.
Many major construction firms moved into management contracting thereby serving to legitimize their retreat from the physical task of construction. Other milestone reports followed, most notably Constructing the Team by Sir Michael Latham (1994) which championed prompt payment for subcontractors. In contrast to subsequent government-sponsored reports, Constructing the Team was authoritative and the product of widespread consultation. It led directly to the Construction Industry Act (1998).
Chapter 5. Rethinking construction
The Egan (1998) report, Rethinking Construction, is widely regarded as a turning point in the UK construction improvement debate. It was characterized throughout by a relentless focus on supposedly ‘modern’ management techniques. The need for the construction industry to change was justified on the basis of client dissatisfaction. There was little attempt to consult with key stakeholders across the sector.
The report’s enthusiasm for instrumental management techniques seemingly knew no bounds. Any activity not contributing directly to client value was labelled as waste and targeted for elimination. The construction industry was further exhorted to adopt techniques supposedly tried-and-tested in the automotive sector.
For the more discerning practitioners, Rethinking Construction conveyed a coded message from the New Labour government that there would be no return to the interventionalist policies associated with earlier Labour administrations. The enterprise culture was here to stay.
Chapter 6. From business process re-engineering to partnering
Throughout the 1990s modern management techniques such as business process reengineering (BPR) and partnering were advocated as essential elements of best practice. Such techniques were popular because they reflected the mood of the time, aligning with calls for enhanced efficiency. The dominant rhetorical themes were that the industry needed to be more efficient and less adversarial.
BPR was often used to justify outsourcing, with a strong emphasis on disruptive technologies that challenged fixed ways of thinking. At the time, such arguments were synonymous with modernization. In contrast, partnering offered a more nuanced approach. It was presented as an enlightened alternative to adversarial ways of working. For many clients, partnering promised to restore the sense of control lost through excessive outsourcing.
In practice, the narratives of BPR and partnering were too often intertwined, with numerous paradoxes and contradictions. Partnering eventually evolved into the equally vague concept of collaborative working. But the inherent contradictions remain firmly intact.
Chapter 7. Lean construction
Following publication of the Egan (1998) report, the concept of lean construction joined the accepted lexicon of essential best practice. The underlying philosophy was derived from lean production as applied in the Japanese automotive industry. Its popularity reflects a recurring obsession among construction sector policy makers with the automotive sector.
Lean thinking is best understood as a complex cocktail of ideas which includes continuous improvement, flattened organisation structures, teamwork, the elimination of waste, and co-operative supply chain management. Yet the extensive pre-existing critical literature on lean production was largely ignored.
In practice, the concepts of ‘leanness’ and ‘lean construction’ were appropriated and mobilized in different ways in different contexts as practitioners struggled to make sense of industry restructuring. Ultimately, many practitioners concluded it was better to be an advocate of lean thinking than to risk being subject to someone else’s efficiency agenda.
Chapter 8. From enterprise to social partnership
The New Labour government (1997-2010) oversaw a proliferation of initiatives aimed at improving the performance of the construction sector. Examples included the Movement for Innovation (M4I) and the Construction Best Practice Programme. The rhetoric was remorseless in its focus on modernization, e.g., Modernising Construction (National Audit Office, 2001). New Labour further presided over the rapid expansion of the private finance initiative (PFI), despite mounting criticism.
In 2001 the Strategic Forum for Construction was launched as the overarching body charged with implementing the Egan agenda. The emphasis lay on monitoring the industry’s performance through a suite of key performance indicators (KPIs). For contractors, the overriding need was to be seen as ‘Egan-compliant’. Meanwhile, contingent forms of employment continued to proliferate as increasing numbers of migrant workers were drawn in from Eastern Europe. Vested interests continued to stymie the Strategic Forum’s best efforts at industry reform. It was far easier simply to advocate a supposed need for ‘culture change’ than to confront the deeper structural challenges facing the industry.
The good times came to an end in 2008 with the onset of global financial crisis.
Chapter 9. Dilemmas unresolved
Threads from previous chapters are drawn together to offer an interim review of progress. The espoused ‘Egan targets’ remained elusive, despite a belated emphasis on sustainability and design quality. Meanwhile, the accelerated outsourcing of non-core capabilities gave rise to the hollowed-out client organisation, evident across both public and private clients. Fewer construction professionals working in the public sector meant less emphasis on serving the public good. Professional knowledge formulated within the public domain too easily became a source of competitive advantage for the expanding consultancy sector.
In response, there was a short-lived attempt to broaden the improvement debate beyond construction efficiency to include wider notions of ‘value’. Such efforts deflected attention from the reality that long-term capacity building in the sector had been sacrificed at the alter of customer responsiveness. Policymakers appeared particularly oblivious to the adverse consequences of the industry’s fissured employment context, most notably in relation to skills and training.
Ultimately, a decade of Egan-inspired hype and hubris delivered little more than rhetorical veneer of modernisation. For the more astute observer, the challenges confronting the construction sector were increasingly inseparable from those of the wider political economy.
Chapter 10. The age of austerity
A new era of austerity emerged in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. The New Labour government was replaced by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition in 2010. David Cameron’s administration wasted little time in announcing extensive cuts in public expenditure. Within this context, the construction improvement agenda was reduced largely to the advocacy of building information modelling (BIM) and low carbon buildings.
Following the successful London 2012 Olympics, the Strategic Forum for Construction launched a set of Construction Commitments for generic use across the wider industry. The response was decidedly lukewarm. The policy void was partly filled by the publication of Construction 2025 (HM Government, 2013), which promoted an over-hyped narrative of radical transformation. The newly formed Construction Leadership Council (CLC) was tasked with implementation.
Yet the CLC inevitably struggled for legitimacy in the eyes of an initiative-fatigued industry. Given the succession of reform programmes and rhetorical promises that had gone before, a degree of cynicism was perhaps understandable.
Chapter 11. A prevailing sense of permacrisis
The Brexit referendum of June 2016 initiated a sustained period of political instability, leaving government with little capacity to engage seriously in construction sector policy. The Farmer (2016) review, Modernise or Die, sparked much debate by comparing the industry to a sick and dying patient. The prevailing sense of permacrisis was compounded by the Grenfell Tower tragedy of June 2017. The subsequent public inquiry highlighted a legacy of accumulated failings.
Further evidence of systemic weakness emerged in the Cole (2017) report, which identified serious shortcomings in the construction and refurbishment of 17 Edinburgh schools financed through a public–private partnership (PPP). Additional shockwaves were generated by the collapse of Carillion plc in January 2018.
Taken together, these events point to a systemic failure which extends beyond conventional definitions of the ‘construction industry’. They highlight a deeper failure of governance in the prevailing regulatory regime. Yet there is little attempt to hold those responsible to account.
Chapter 12. Unfulfilled dreams of technological optimism
The Construction Sector Deal of 2018 was presented as a vehicle for transforming productivity through the application of digital and offsite technologies. Those tasked with implementation faced the duel challenges of political instability and the onset of the Covid pandemic. Procuring for value came briefly back in vogue, prior to sinking once again into obscurity.
Modern methods of construction (MMC) were widely promoted as a panacea, but the envisaged radical transformation was massively over-hyped. There was little recognition of the lessons from earlier attempts at standardization and prefabrication. Many commentators resorted to meaningless tropes about culture change in the absence of being able to say anything more meaningful.
The Construction Playbook (HM Government, 2020) sought yet another re-set in the relationship between public sector clients and the construction sector. As with many of its predecessors, it was replete with warm words but short on binding commitments. The industry now awaits the next supposed panacea. Meanwhile, policymakers remain conspicuously uninterested in why earlier initiatives failed to deliver meaningful change.
For all construction folk and the next construction minister
Stuart Green has captured and exposed the painful history of construction improvement attempts from WW2 to present day. Appreciating this history presents an opportunity to imagine and implement a better future rather than more iterations of what’s gone before and failed. He starts and finishes by applauding, rightly so, construction people who achieve so much while being subjected to all this. It’s a wonderful piece of work, a wonderful book, I don’t know how he did it. I am particularly keen that industry practitioners read this book as they are intimately and unwittingly shaped by its content, on a daily basis.
