Committee receives one industry response on retentions

The trade and industry select committee has only received one industry response following the Department of Trade & Industry's (DTI) indifferent feedback on retentions nearly three weeks ago.

Despite the DTI's insistence to stick with retentions across government contracts, committee chairman Martin O'Neill told CJ that the single response by the Specialist Engineering Contractors' (SEC) Group was not enough to add weight to a forthcoming letter to construction minister Brian Wilson.

"We are obviously disappointed by the government's response and we want an answer from the minister as to why his department gave such a poor reply," said O'Neill. "However, we need the ammunition to get the full impact."

He added that the response by DTI (CJ 19 February) on his committee's report into retentions, which included a phasing-out of retentions by 2007, was made even worse as the report didn't call for any legislation changes.

"We knew that changes to legislation would have been too difficult and probably not worth the effort,"  he said. "However excuses about time constraints wears very thin in relation to this issue."