黑洞社区

Well, well 鈥� It鈥檚 been 20 years since Sir Michael Latham鈥檚 Constructing the Team report was published. In 1994 he gave us constructors a thick ear. He described the industry as ineffective, adversarial, fragmented and incapable of delivering for its customers. And he very nearly spotted why. Nearly. 

Mind you, he was not the first to lambast those of us in construction: Sir Harold Banwell said the same in 1964; Sir Harold Emmerson said the same in 1962; Sir Ernest Simon said the same in 1948 and before that in 1944 (he got two knighthoods).

They had all cribbed from Alfred Bossom鈥檚 1934 book Reaching for the Skies when he had the cheek to proclaim 鈥渢he process of UK construction, instead of being an orderly and consecutive advance down the line, is all too apt to become a scramble and a muddle鈥�. And the whingeing hasn鈥檛 stopped since Latham.

In 1998 that fellow of Jaguar cars fame, Sir John Egan, gave us Rethinking Construction and in 2002 the follow-up Accelerating Change. By then, my Jaguar wouldn鈥檛 accelerate anywhere. That year we got Modernising Construction by the National Audit Office telling us to discard our adversarial ways and become tree-huggers. We had M4i Movement for Excellence.  

If I have heard 鈥渢eamwork鈥� once, I have heard it a hundred times 鈥�  And 鈥渃ollaboration鈥� 鈥� And 鈥渃o-operation鈥� 鈥� And 鈥減artnering鈥� (where did that go?).

Now let me ask you a question. Has anything changed? Anyone of us with insight into our industry could have written Mr Bossom鈥檚 1934 book, and Latham and Banwell and Emmerson and Simon, and said precisely the same then and now as he did. It鈥檚 all a scramble and a muddle. 
I love it.

But Latham did not, nor did the others, dig down as to why we are so enthusiastic about a fight. It鈥檚 tricky territory. It鈥檚 because no one, no architect, no engineer, no contractor and no subcontractor knows what they are doing. Fact. It starts with a piece of fiction and a fib. The bid process for all of us including the architect pretends to price a given project. Tosh. 

In truth what constructors are asked to price for is a load of twaddle. The job, within minutes of starting on site, goes off the rails. It changes or isn鈥檛 ready or needs information. The architect, the contractor, the subbies shrug - it鈥檚 the way of things. The price, by the way, the bid, was a guess - a stab in the dark. Worse still, there is another pretence: the price is founded on what the specification and drawings say. We all pretend it can be done efficiently. 

Latham nodded in this direction but that鈥檚 all.  He said, limply: 鈥淚t is best practice if all projects are fully planned as has been recommended by previous reports such as Banwell [鈥�] That remains the ideal [鈥�] This assumes perfection and no changes of circumstance in time, demand or finance.鈥� 

That is an utterly daft attitude. And wrong in fact. Most projects come out for bids, and begin and continue and end (late) because they are half designed, begging for information, and awaiting decisions. It鈥檚 all done on the hoof. Spot a bald man on a building site, it鈥檚 because he long since pulled his hair out. Damn it, will you architects give your clients a roasting about the utter nonsense of starting a job while there is oodles of sorting out yet to be done?

Latham and the others say we are 鈥渁dversarial鈥� - this is wrong. It is an absolute must to claim loss and expense. This is desperation talk, not fighting talk. To be fair, none of these Latham-type gurus, 20 years and more ago, had the insight we have now. The position is the same worldwide. The job is not planned because the once leader of the whole process 鈥� the architect 鈥� has abandoned their leader role. It is just too complex for one person to complete the design and specification down to the last nut and bolt and avoid changes. So changes, or late information, or mistakes, are ordinary. In which case there is disruption, disputes, extensions of time, and variation disputes. Fingers are pointed, bottoms are covered, and letter writers become contractual. What do you expect if you build on the hoof? You get disputes and frustration and fed-up folk. It鈥檚 the same disputes in every part of the building world. 

Latham recognised one ever so important weakness - the law business. Our dispute-resolving systems simply cannot cope via litigation. So he was encouraged by some of us to 鈥渋nvent鈥� 28-day adjudication. He gets top marks for enshrining it in statute. And across the globe 鈥渙ur鈥� adjudication - Latham鈥檚 idea - is embedded. Latham didn鈥檛 sort out the construction industry at all - he sorted out the law industry. We lawyers deserved a thick ear too, and got it. Thank you, Sir Michael 鈥� Have another knighthood.

Tony Bingham is a barrister and arbitrator at 3 Paper 黑洞社区s, Temple