The bluff civil servant is, by all accounts, a mixture of the abrasive and the persuasive. His combative manner often ruffles feathers, much like the man he reports to, deputy prime minister John Prescott, and fellow hard-hitter Sir John Egan, whose Rethinking Construction ideas Hobson is charged with helping to implement. But today he is on his best behaviour, minder at his side to check he does not 鈥減ut his foot in it鈥�, he jokes.
His orderly office in the labyrinthine DETR is devoid of personality. A solitary poster showing key performance indicators is pinned to the wall, and his tidy desk suggests a rational, mathematician鈥檚 mind 鈥� Hobson studied the subject at Cambridge before joining the Ministry of Transport in 1967. He did not want to go into research, teaching or computing, so the civil service seemed a sensible option. As a mathematician, he has 鈥渁 great interest in order, pattern and structure鈥�, and gets satisfaction from solving problems.
Sorting out construction is Hobson鈥檚 task. He sees his role as 鈥渟ponsoring鈥� the industry, prodding it 鈥� initially at least 鈥� into action on the Egan targets for productivity and profitability. 鈥淭he deputy prime minister was anxious to get some change going,鈥� he says, hinting at pressure from Prescott to get results from the taskforce he commissioned.
According to Hobson, his 鈥渞umbustious鈥� boss is 鈥渇ully behind鈥� the Egan movement, although the civil servant does not often bother him with detail because of pressure on his time. Nick Raynsford, whom Hobson describes as an 鈥渋ntellectual鈥�, deals with the nitty-gritty. He believes that the combination of heavyweight cabinet minister and dedicated construction minister gives him the backing he needs to translate policy into action.
A year on from the Egan report, Hobson sees his challenge as maintaining the enthusiasm for change that it generated in the industry. He talks of spreading the word so that everyone buys into the message, and dismisses concerns that small firms may not yet have learned the Egan mantra. He thinks market forces will ensure they comply in due course.
鈥淭he important thing is that we have a common hymn sheet,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a quality and professional industry and it needs to raise its game,鈥� he adds in fluent politician-speak.
So, has the industry been slow on the Egan uptake? He says no. 鈥淭his is a big battleship. I can鈥檛 remember a policy that was devised and got off the ground so quickly. At the launch of the Movement for Innovation in November, so many people stayed until 5.30pm. There wasn鈥檛 the usual drifting-off after lunch.鈥� The Newcastle upon Tyne-born 53-year-old seems genuinely enthused by the industry鈥檚 appetite for change. He points to the growing number of demonstration projects 鈥� 85, worth 拢3bn at the last count 鈥� as evidence of this. He thinks 鈥渢he demonstration-project approach, not long, erudite papers鈥� is the way to drive change, and says the department wants to create a 鈥渘o-blame culture, to see what works and what doesn鈥檛鈥�, although he acknowledges the need to measure change by analysing the figures through key performance indicators.
The first data will not be available until April, but the indicators have already been criticised for assuming that commercial firms will make their real costs public.
Hobson admits the system is open to manipulation, although, as far as he is aware, the figures have not been 鈥渕assaged鈥�. He defends the method: 鈥淚t is an iterative process, a first attempt. I don鈥檛 think Alan Crane would pretend he got it right, and I certainly wouldn鈥檛,鈥� he says, muttering something Sir Humphrey-ish about being a humble sort of person. 鈥淭hese are all very difficult things to measure. They鈥檙e complex ideas. If cost was simple, there wouldn鈥檛 be quantity surveyors. There鈥檚 bound to be generalisation.鈥� In the meantime, there are rumblings in the industry about Hobson鈥檚 and the government鈥檚 top-down approach to innovation. One senior industry figure said he could not think of any other country that had forced an industry to innovate by press-ganging its leaders.
Hobson, in typical bullish fashion, counters the idea that the government is exerting too much influence, noting that the Movement for Innovation has only four government members, and that clear leadership was exactly what Sir John called for.
鈥淚鈥檝e seen comments that people think the government is driving this. Yes, in a sense, the government is, because it has a clear view. But an industry will only improve if it sees a direct advantage to itself,鈥� he says.
