Plans for a new conference organised by the Construction Industry Council and the Strategic Forum for Construction aim to create an industry-led platform to debate issues that extend the beyond government’s procurement agenda, Construction Manager understands.
The Construction Industry Summit on 8-9 September 2015 is setting out its stall as an alternative option to procurement-dominated events.
The summit is badged as “being organised by the industry, for the industry, to engage and empower stakeholders from across all sectors of the built environment to achieve and deliver the vision set out in the Industrial Strategy Construction 2025 manifesto”.
Graham Watts, chief executive of the CIC, told CM: “We’re running a construction summit that isn’t run for the industry by the government, where the industry can decide which of the wide variety of subjects current at the time will be on the agenda.”
In a press release, Peter Hansford, chief construction adviser, said: “The global construction market is forecast to grow over 70% by 2025 and the government is working with the UK construction industry to ensure that British companies are well placed to take advantage of the opportunities that this presents. The Construction Industry Summit is an invitation to everyone in the industry to get involved and to have their say in the Construction 2025 vision going forward.”
It is to be led by the CIC and the SFfC, a grouping of industry organisations that has kept a low profile in recent years, and has a website that hasn’t been updated since January 2013.
Originally set up as a tri-partite government-industry-union forum, it currently consists solely of industry organisations: the Construction Products Association representing manufacturers and distributors, the CIC representing the professionals, the National Specialist Contractors Council and the Specialist Engineering Council representing specialist contractors, and the Civil Engineering Contractors Association, NFB and FMB representing contractors.
Diana Montgomery, chief executive of the Construction Products Association, explained that the group had been active behind the scenes in supporting the Construction 2025 agenda.
“The forum is meeting regularly and over the past year has reshaped itself to better take this work forward. We are in the process of revising the website which we do realise is now out of date; we hope to have the new website launched by the end of Q1 next year. The SFfC will be activity supporting the Industry summit to ensure it is a successful industry event.”
Watts explained that the SFfC co-ordinates the industry’s response to issues discussed at the Construction Leadership Council. “Five members of the CLC come from the bodies on the Strategic Forum, and they tend to work as a group. For instance, ahead of the discussion on rationalising industry competence card schemes [at the latest CLC meeting in November], the five will discuss it separately and put forward a single voice. The CLC meetings are just two hours, so there’s not much time for debate.”
