Defence Estates fails to notice retentions abuse

Defence Estates (DE) has been slammed by specialist contractor groups for allowing its main contractors to keep retentions from subcontractors, despite being signed up to government best practice methods.

News of the subbie-bashing, which has apparently gone unnoticed by the agency, was brought to the attention of the Specialist Engineering Contractor Group (SEC Group) and the National Specialist Contractors Council (NSCC) by their members.

SEC Group has now called for emergency meetings with the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) to explain why the agency, one of the OGC's most heralded departments in its Achieving Excellence initiative to promote best practice, is failing to prevent its contractor base using adversarial methods.

However, one main contractor, actively involved in work for DE, added: "We have been given no direction from the client on retentions and have been left to our own devices."

A DE insider said that although the agency is trying to tackle retentions, "progress was proving more difficult than expected".

Rudi Klein, chief executive of SEC Group, labelled the findings "appalling" and is drawing up a campaign to name and shame main contractors using retentions.

NSCC chief executive Suzannah Nichol said the findings are "grave and surprising".

Neither the OGC nor DE was able to provide an official response.