‘Spend, spend, spend until you get it right’

THIS letter is prompted by another Boris Johnson sound bite.

This time it is addressed to an industry whose record for collaborative working, espoused by Construction Excellence in Wales for example, has not yet shaken off a reputation for failing to deliver projects on time and within budget: resulting in the demise of many of the names that were house-hold in my days in the industry.

One example of an initial inadequate budget, as highlighted by the American Jack Lemley, was the one preparing London to host the 2012 Olympic Games.

The Lord Mayor of London at the time was one Boris Johnson: it took a more realistic budget increase to complete the work so that the Games opened on time: until then it was another wing and a prayer job.

Even worse could be said about the Garden Bridge planned during Boris’ stint as Lord Mayor: this is because it was abandoned after having had, a mere, £43m spent on it.

Given that record, and the money wasted in preparing to leave the EU, it is reasonable to convert Boris’ latest sound bite into “Spend, spend, spend until you get it right”; surely a contradiction in terms.

If one adds into that wasted money the cost of the UK’s laissez faire culture and adversarial legal approach to resolving disputes, the result is a perfect storm that the collaboration preached by the likes of Construction Excellence in Wales is meant to eliminate in the construction industry, but has not.

As a former employee of the parties on each side of the construction industry, here and overseas, I suggest that it is high time the industry, at least, becomes more inquisitorial and less adversarial.

This would allow those appointed to settle disputes to carry out their own investigation of the facts, rather than rely on the conflicting evidence presented by the parties in our present legal system.

An even more controversial suggestion is to appoint a neutral body to oversee whether the plan and budget is realistic and to collaboratively oversee its execution with a view to recommending how any disputes might be avoided, or failing that, how best to resolve those that cannot be.

Derek Griffiths Llandaff