A year ago I struggled to understand the story behind the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union, and came to the conclusion that there was no story.

I noted that there were, at the time, myriads of sub-plots, and transient characters spread across an incomplete structure of chapters. There were at least two different books for these chapters to randomly locate themselves: one a comedy, the other a tragedy. But it was not immediately obvious which was which. Chapters from these two books swop from one to the other without warning. Like the ever-moving staircases in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the chapters started and ended in different places each time they were read.

Protagonists spouted their own versions of the sub-plots, vehemently insulting the protagonists of opposing sub-plots.

The worst insults sprang from media columnists, whose only function in life appeared to be to cynically and sneeringly snipe at any opinion that they didn’t support at the time. They arrogantly accused others of arrogance.

In the ensuing year, nothing much has happened, other than further descent into hapless oblivion with no prospect of any movement, let alone solution.

As I observed last year, protagonists have wilfully swapped sides and opinions. Vicky Pollard is more sure about herself than many yeah-but-no-but-yeah-but-no Politicians. Are you Remain, Leave, Hard or Soft Brexit? “I’m not sure, what time of day is it.”

So what, from my suggestions, did we do to put it right?

1. Abandon adversarial parliaments, whether EU or UK? Nope.
2. Encourage elected members to represent their local electorate rather than the wider political parties? Not really.
3. Reintroduce a truly independent Civil Service, that exists to support the greater good rather than Robin Day’s “here today, gone tomorrow” politicians? Institutionally no! Lord Adonis actually suggested the Civil Service should ignore the will of Government to support the will of (52%) of the people – as perceived by Lord Adonis.
4. Allow independent experts to offer their true independent advice, unfettered by political funding or influence? Yes, but politicians don’t listen!
5. Have another crack at making the European Union work for all its peoples; not just the politicians, not just the legislative, not just businesses, certainly not ex prime-ministers of European tax havens and their lackies not just the rich, not just the poor, but every European? No, that would be a climb down from lofty political heights and would thwart the will of 52% of people, a significant proportion of whom were duped by illegal misinformation.

Chapter 9 “Procurement and Supply” of Dame Judith Hackitt’s “Building a Safer Future” report describes a lack of clear roles and responsibilities, ambiguous regulations and guidance and unhelpful behaviours, such as contract terms and payment practices that prioritise speed and low cost solutions, which allow the market to procure the construction of buildings without safety in mind. These characteristics are held responsible for providing poor value for money and poor building safety outcomes.

The report also describes the problems of inadequate specification, focus on low cost and adversarial contracting making it difficult and more expensive to produce a safe building.

Dame Hackitt makes three recommendations in respect of procurement of Higher Risk Residential Buildings (HRRBs):

9.1      For HRRBs, principal contractors and clients should devise contracts that specifically state that safety requirements must not be compromised for cost reduction.

9.2      For HRRBs, tenders should set out how the solution that is proposed will produce safe building outcomes, approaching the building as a system. Those procuring should use the tender review process to test whether this is the case.

9.3      For HRRBs the information in the contracting documentation relating to the safety aspects should be included in the digital record set out in Chapter 8 of the report.

In addition, the report recommends that the government should consider applying these requirements to other multi-occupancy residential buildings and to institutional residential buildings. This is something that the Housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee will probably consider in their forthcoming “Further examination of Independent Review of Building Regulations”, when they will gather evidence on the immediate and longer-term changes needed to improve the safety of residential tower blocks.

Why stop there? Any construction procurement strategy should include a requirement for safety to be prioritised over cost reduction. Where is the logic that states that the procurement of lower risk buildings or building operations in other residential or non-residential buildings can avoid the need for safety?

Risk assessment involves the likelihood of an identified hazard occurring being multiplied by the severity of harm to produce a level of risk. Existing risk mitigation can lower the level of risk, but such risk assessments should be carried out before classifying a building project as higher or lower risk. Only after the risk level has been calculated should the risk mitigation measures be proposed and a residual level of risk be calculated to enable satisfactory control of those risks.

Pre-empting the level of risk is dangerous and may lead to a “no change” mentality within the construction and procurement industries.

All framework procurement exercises should include rigorous assessments of tenderers’ capabilities in respect of Health and Safety. Procurement evaluations should always prioritise quality (including Health and Safety) over initial cost to achieve true value for money.  Indeed, doing so may not produce the cheapest solution.

Collaborative approaches to Framework call-off projects should be promoted, to ensure that procurement and delivery teams work together to produce safe solutions. As described in Lord Young’s report “Growing Business” and the Public Contracts Regulations 2015, contracts should include clauses covering prompt consideration and payment of invoices down the supply chain as well as clauses that specifically oblige all team members to ensure that safety requirements will not be compromised for cost reduction.

Only then will we be building a safer future for all.

I’m in hospital, whiling away the time as the medical profession tries to sort out my low blood pressure and saturation levels as well as pumping me with fluids and antibiotics. I’m overlooking works to the roof mounted AC/ventilation system of a new Children’s Emergency Department.

Operatives are overwrapping insulation with a self adhesive vinyl protection sheet. Despite being over 5m high in places and the work being close to the edges, there is absolutely zero edge protection. Furthermore, materials are being delivered to the site and thrown up to a lower roof and subsequently to a higher level.

One operative just nicked his hand on a sharp vinyl edge, and just kept going.

So my question is – when did insulation companies become exempt from HSW Act?

Update: It seems that my report had the desired effect. The works were stopped, the Client was contacted, the contractor was interviewed, and the matter will be brought up at the Client’s next H&S meeting. Some may accuse me of H&S overzealousness, but rather that than serious injury or fatality.

In June 2015, I wrote a blog entitled “Fit for purpose: A generalist’s charter”, in which I suggested that “rather than setting out clear standards and specifications that are required to be followed, some construction professionals will merely list a number of (usually out of date) International, European or British Standards, trade specifications and/or the ubiquitous but totally meaningless Best Industry Practice, and override the whole thing with ‘reasonable skill and care’, or ‘fit for purpose’.

At the time, a court judgement had recently awarded damages of €26.5m against a design and construct engineering company for failing to provide wind turbine foundations that were ‘fit for purpose’, despite having followed the specified standards. Unfortunately the standard had erroneous data, and the resulting foundations did not did not satisfy the customer’s requirements for a twenty year life. So under this judgement, any contractor could diligently carry out his duties by following the required standard, but still be liable if the standard was incorrect.

The whole thing was turned on its head, by a successful appeal in which the judges threw out the award. The learned judges held that ‘fit for purpose’ and ‘reasonable skill and care’ clauses cannot over-ride any specification or specified standard.

However, a further and final appeal judgement was issued, where the Supreme Court reinstated the original award stating that it was clear from express wording in the Technical Requirements document that J101 (the specified document) was a design requirement and it was the engineering company’s responsibility to identify any areas where the works needed to be designed to any additional or more rigorous requirements.  Such more rigorous requirements being that the foundations should deliver a twenty year life.

By this judgement, clients seem to be encouraged to include out of date or unread standards, over-riding everything by saying “by the way, I have no idea if the standards I’ve specified are suitable for my requirements, so you should offer a broadly ‘Fit for Purpose’ product that satisfies the following additional criteria.”

Also by this judgement, tenderers seem to be required to ignore the standards and write their own.

In 1969, Joseph McGrath brought Terry Southern’s comic novel “The Magic Christian” to life in a film starring Peter Sellers, Ringo Starr and a host of other well known actors and comic performers. Largely panned by the critics both at the time and subsequently, the recurring theme revolved around “everything and everyone has its price”.

A century earlier, John Ruskin was purported to have said:

​”There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price alone are this man’s lawful prey,”

and:

“It’s unwise to pay too much, but it’s worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money – that is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot – it can’t be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run. And if you do that, you will have enough to pay for something better.”

Although the authorship of the above statements is now debated, there remains an inevitable and haunting truth in the sentiments expressed.

It is not wrong to obtain best prices in an open competition, but it is wrong to be driven by cost-cutting for the sake of it, and where doing so lowers the level of quality and, indeed, safety.  However, where ‘Value Engineering’ cuts quality to achieve a Client’s unrealistic budget, it’s a dangerous game, and is bound to result in often catastrophic failures.  At the core of all construction projects, there must be a bottom line for levels of Quality, Health and Safety that cannot be breached.

Alternatively, ‘Value Management’ defines and adds value, focusing on innovation, objectives and outcomes before solutions and obviously has its place in modernising the Construction Industry.  Where a Contractor offers Value Management services with the aim of improving the contract offer, this must be done collaboratively with the whole team, including Client and Consultants, with the interests of the end users, be they residents, school children, teachers or public sector employees, very much at the fore.

Don’t cut coat according to your cloth, if doing so leaves you and those who depend upon you vulnerable.