Expert bodies are likely to be set up in each government department to anticipate construction bottlenecks

Government departments are set to establish public鈥損rivate advisory boards to help manage the timing of large building programmes after a review of construction market capacity.

The Office of Government Commerce, the Treasury鈥檚 procurement arm, told construction leaders this week that many departments had failed to brief them properly about their plans for big building programmes. The effect of this had been that contractors and materials suppliers had not been able to anticipate periods of high government demand, and this had led to delays and extra expense.

The OGC鈥檚 Kelly Review team recommended that departments involve the industry earlier to ensure that firms had the products and resources required. This could be done by setting up public鈥損rivate reference groups, in which leading suppliers and contractors would meet officials to agree the timings of build programmes. The OGC would then monitor these groups.

Sally Fryer, OGC director of government market, said: 鈥淒epartmental engagement with the construction market is inconsistent. We don鈥檛 want to be prescriptive, but for every major construction programme there could be a reference group.

鈥淲hen a project is a twinkle in a department鈥檚 eye it needs to be thinking of the best way of getting the industry to help plan the construction programme 鈥� the industry can then give its view on whether the plans are feasible.鈥�

Planning must get under way when a project is a twinkle in the eye

OGC senior official Sally Fry

This recommendation follows the review team鈥檚 assessment of project demand and industry supply over the next few years. It found that the North-west was a potential 鈥減inch-point鈥� because a large number of projects were coming on-stream but the number of construction companies had declined.

Fryer said: 鈥淭here might be a capacity problem in the North-west. We need to investigate. We don鈥檛 want a knee-jerk reaction, but need to verify our findings. If they are right we will have to get the great and good together to decide what to do, which could be to encourage more firms into the North-west or streamline projects.鈥�

John Connaughton, the partner in QS Davis Langdon that developed the OGC database, said: 鈥淭he data indicates that the proportion of new projects to population initially indicates capacity problems.鈥�

The OGC is now looking to broaden its database. At the moment it concentrates heavily on projects that are valued at more than 拢5m, but is going to contact local authorities to include data on smaller schemes.