Midas chairman warns on integrated working

The construction industry has been warned that it must make more of an effort to educate clients over the benefits of integrated working.
The plea came from Midas chairman Steve Hindley, who was speaking at a Constructing Excellence conference on leadership in London last week.
"Apart from the successes of ProCure 21 and prime contracts, there is little leadership in the public sector. When we talk to clients they don't really understand integrated working and frameworks," said Hindley. "If we [the industry] don't give guidance then politicians will change their minds and go back to the old methods of lowest price.
"I fear for the one-off public sector clients that come into the market with the wrong information. Integrated working is the way forward and is going well in the private sector," he said.
Richard Saxon, chairman of the Buildings and Estates Forum, added that he was becoming "more aware of clients returning to lowest price" because they were being bombarded by best value guidance from central government without the necessary help on how to apply it.
One contractor working solely on public sector contracts told CJ: "Clients are becoming bamboozled by all this guidance coming out over getting better value and doing away with lowest cost. There seems to be little guidance so they are just reverting back to what they know best, which is not good for the industry."
However, the contractor added that many SMEs were being denied the opportunity to help provide integrated solutions by strong exclusive relationships between major contractors and clients.
PA Finlay managing director Michael Finlay said: "Many SMEs are becoming disenfranchised with the whole integration theme as often we don't get a voice in the project team. The client seems to think that big is beautiful and the main contractor needs to push things through. Little feedback is invited from the supply chain."
<25A0> See CCG feature, pages 19-21.