Government silent on Achieving Excellence

The government's progress towards reaching its targets to improve the number of projects being completed defect-free and on time and budget has been brought into serious question this week by industry officials.

The uncertainty follows the discovery that the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) has failed to supply progress details on its Achieving Excellence: Building on Success initiative to the trade and industry select committee as part of its inquiry into the use of retentions (CJ 24 September 2003).

It has now been six months since the OGC agreed to keep the committee updated on the government's progress against the Achieving Excellence targets of 70% of construction projects by volume to be completed on time, within budget and with zero defects by March next year.

A committee source confirmed to CJ that no data has been received from the OGC and that the committee would be writing to the department if the delay continues.

When asked what progress the government was making with its targets, an OGC spokesman replied: "The work of measuring progress against the strategic targets is ongoing. With still more than a year to go, it is not possible to draw conclusions yet and it would be inappropriate to comment at this stage.  "This work is due to finish in March 2005 and the OGC will make the results known soon after."

However, one source told CJ that he would not be surprised if there are difficulties. "These are bold targets and I think the OGC is realising that it has bitten off more than it can chew," he added.

Rudi Klein, chief executive of the Specialist Engineering Contractors' (SEC) Group, told CJ: "The fact that the OGC has failed to supply the targets raises some serious questions and is very disappointing. We are considering putting the pressure on the committee to make sure the OGC complies with its commitment to the committee."