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. An understanding of the past is argued to be 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 exposed widespread corruption in the public sector. The consensus in favour of state planning was further disrupted by prolonged industrial action. The national building strike of 1972 left a legacy of bitterness. 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 was committed to the reduction of trade union power and the widespread introduction of market mechanisms. She 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’ had long-term implications for the public housing stock. Direct Labour Organisations (DLOs) within local authorities were further targeted in the name of market efficiency 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. Such changes 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 well-and-truly over. 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 1980/90s. 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 capabilities judged to non-essential. Key clients of the industry hence became leaner and more reliant on external consultants. Increased volatility of demand obliged contractors to adopt a strategic model of structural flexibility. In short, construction 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 invariably seen as someone else’s responsibility. In retrospect, the construction sector served as a trailblazer for the modern gig economy. The fissured employment context continues to have adverse consequences for 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 the allocation of design responsibility 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 more demanding as the rhetoric of construction improvement was fuelled by the prevailing ethos of customer responsiveness. Many major construction firms moved into management contractors thereby serving to legitimize their retreat from the physical task of construction. Other milestone reports included Constructing the Team by Sir Michael Latham (1994) which championed prompt payment for subcontractors. In sharp contrast to subsequent reports, the Latham report was authoritative and well-researched.
Chapter 5. Rethinking construction
The Egan (1998) report Rethinking Construction is commonly held to be a key watershed in the UK construction improvement debate. The report 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. The report’s enthusiasm for instrumental management techniques seemingly knew no bounds. The core argument was that activities that did not contribute directly to client value should be classified as waste. The construction industry was further exhorted to adopt ‘tried and tested’ techniques developed in the automotive sector. For those willing to read between the lines, Rethinking Construction also provided a coded message from the newly installed New Labour government that there would be no return to the interventionalist policies previously associated with Labour governments. 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 caught the mood of the time. BPR was widely invoked as part of the rationale for outsourcing. Justifying narratives frequently referred to disruptive technologies which challenged fixed ways of thinking. Such arguments were at the time synonymous with modernization. Partnering offered a more nuanced storyline and was presented as an enlightened alternative to adversarial ways of working. For many clients, partnering promised to off-set the loss of control caused by outsourcing. Both partnering and BPR can be seen to be riddled with paradoxes and inherent contradictions. Partnering was to subsequently morph into the equally vague concept of collaborative working. But the inherent contradictions remained 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 longstanding 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 there is an extensive critical literature on lean production which is strangely ignored. Meanwhile, 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 construction sector re-structuring.
Chapter 8. From enterprise to social partnership
The New Labour government (1997-2010) prevailed over a plethora 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. The Strategic Forum for Construction was launched in 2001 as the overarching body responsible for the implementation of the Egan agenda. The emphasis lay on monitoring the industry’s performance through a suite of key performance indicators (KPIs). The overriding need was to be seen as ‘Egan-compliant’. Few bothered to talk about the absence of stable employment regimes as increasing numbers of migrant workers were sucked in from Eastern Europe. It was far easier to keep on advocating the need for an industry culture change – a meaningless soundbite which everyone could support. 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. This applied to 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 consultancy sector. In response, there was a short-lived attempt to extend the improvement debate beyond construction efficiency to include broader issues of ‘value’. However, the importance of long-term construction sector capacity building had been sacrificed at the alter of customer responsiveness. Policy makers seemed especially blind to the adverse consequences of the industry’s fissured employment context for long-term investment in skills and training. Ultimately, a decade of Egan-inspired hype and hubris offered a rhetorical veneer of modernisation but little in the way of meaningful progress. For the more astute observer, the challenges faced by the construction sector were increasingly inseparable from those of the broader 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. The construction improvement agenda was reduced 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 lukewarm. The policy void was partly filled by the publication of Construction 2025 (HM Government, 2013). The new strategy promoted an over-hyped narrative of radical transformation. The recently formed Construction Leadership Council (CLC) was tasked with implementation. It inevitably struggled for legitimacy in the eyes of an initiative-fatigued construction sector. Given what had gone before a degree of cynicism was perhaps understandable.
Chapter 11. A prevailing sense of permacrisis
The Brexit referendum in June 2016 initiated a sustained period of political instability. Government thereafter lacked the capacity to engage seriously in construction sector policy. The Farmer (2016) review sparked much debate by comparing the industry to a sick and dying patient. The prevailing sense of crisis was fuelled by the Grenfell Tower tragedy of June 2017. The subsequent public inquiry highlighted a legacy of accumulated failings. The Cole (2017) report also exposed serious shortcomings in the construction/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. Collectively, these events point towards a systemic failure which extends beyond accepted definitions of the ‘construction industry’. The listed events point towards a failure of governance in respect of 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 aimed at transforming productivity through the application of digital and offsite technologies. Those tasked with implementation strove to deliver in a context characterized by 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 hailed as a panacea, but the envisaged radical transformation was massively over-hyped. There was little recognition of the lessons from previous attempts at standardization and prefabrication. Many commentators resorted to shallow tropes about the need for 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. The industry awaits with bated breath for the next supposed panacea. Meanwhile there remains a stubborn lack of interest in why previous such calls had failed to instigate 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.
A must read for construction professionals, academics and policy makers
Stuart Green’s book is by far the most interesting, thoughtful and well researched historical analysis of the construction sector I have come across. I thoroughly recommend that anyone working in the construction sector, and (particularly) policy makers read this book from cover to cover. Many of the issues presented will be familiar to most, but they are weaved together with a cohesive narrative that gives perspective and context to them. Stuart doesn’t hold his punches and its about time those who want to see change in the industry (and economy) should also stop and think.
Essential reading for senior people in the construction industry
Essential reading for senior people in the construction industry and if they had read it then the industry would be in a considerably better place. It improves the quality of debate around construction and is both insightful and critical of where the construction industry has come from, where it is now and where it may go in the future.