The Construction Industry Council is poised to set up an internal review group to examine its fundamental role and constitution – a move that could lead to far-reaching changes for the membership body that represents 31 professional institutes including the CIOB.
CIC chief executive Graham Watts told Construction Manager that the task force, due to be set up at a meeting of the CIC council on 12 June, was part of a regular three-year cycle of internal reviews.
But this year’s review comes just weeks after the publication of the Collaboration for Change report, written by Paul Morrell and commissioned by pan-industry discussion group The Edge, which challenged the CIC to take a more proactive role on cross-cutting issues such as sustainability and professional ethics.
Watts explained that the forthcoming exercise would be “all-embracing”, covering the organisation’s governance, name, aims and objectives, and funding.
"The Memorandum and Articles of Association haven’t changed since 1988. The CIC as it is constituted is a servant of its members, but some people are now arguing it needs to be more empowered to undertake work on research, or education, or sustainability."
Graham Watts, CIC
Watts explained: “The Memorandum and Articles of Association haven’t changed since [the CIC was set up with just five member bodies in] 1988. The CIC as it is constituted is a servant of its members, but some people are now arguing it needs to be more empowered to undertake work on research, or education, or sustainability.
“So there will need to be a due process to see if they are all agreed and want to see a change of direction.”
“I think we would be doing this without the Edge report, but it has helped point us in certain directions. There are some elements of the governance that are out of date and need changing.”
The CIC currently draws around 13% of its income from subscriptions, an increase from a low point of 10% during the downturn but significantly below the 25% level in 2002.
The rest comes a variety of commercial initiatives: it runs the Approved Inspectors Register for the DCLG; it draws project management fees for running schemes for other bodies, such as the regional BIM hubs; it owns the Considerate Constructors Scheme and the Design Quality Indicators Scheme; it appoints adjudicators and sells various publications and contracts.
Watts added: “We’re wholly owned and governed by members, but they’re only contributing 13% of income.”
He also pointed out that the CIC had lost around £1m a year in funding from the CITB [clarification: the annual grant was whittled down gradually between 2007/8 until 2014/5] due to the shift towards employer-led training – which means that it no longer employs a team of construction skills specialists.
“The people working on skills were doing a lot of genuine skills work for the industry, including helping on the employer-led skills pilots,” he noted,
The review taskforce is likely to come up with recommendations which would be discussed at a future meeting of the CIC council.
