Last week, Construction Confederation chief executive Stephen Ratcliffe welcomed news that CONIAC, the HSE advisory committee on construction, faces the axe. He argued that he was happy to see the Strategic Forum's safety body take over CONIAC's responsibilities.
But the 'specialist' construction industry must come together and resist such aspirations.
It is a generally held view that our industry is driven by the majority-contracting side of the construction industry, and that major contractors fail to understand the needs of the specialist sector.
The Construction Confederation would have us believe therefore that it is there to set the agenda and the rest of the industry, which does somewhere in the region of 80% of the work, should recognise its position in the supply chain and dutifully follow its lead.
The Strategic Forum's safety group must not be allowed to move in on CONIAC. Otherwise it risks becoming another closed shop for mainstream contractors, hell-bent on telling the specialists how to do their job.
The National Association of Shopfitters is by no means the sole arbiter of standards within the overall sphere of construction. But what is certain is that CONIAC must be saved. It successfully joins up the dots of the whole industry and demonstrates that intelligent thinking exists outside the square mile of Westminster.
Robert Hudson
Director
National Association of Shopfitters
Shopfitting Independent Training Forum