Leo Quinn Chief Executive OF Balfour Beatty is calling on the government to establish a new body to “oversee and drive through to delivery” infrastructure schemes which are prioritised as being in the national interest as part of the economic recovery.

The call comes in a new thought paper on what can be learnt from lockdown and outlining his vision for the future of the construction industry going forwards.

The paper,“Seizing the day: positive change from lockdown for the construction and infrastructure industry”, explores how the changes made in recent months have allowed the industry to adapt with agility and question old habits, and how this mindset will be the positive legacy left by lockdown.

The paper says that using any COVID-19 stimulus package to set the economy on a path to decarbonisation will require a focus on areas such as renewable energy, zero emission transport infrastructure and ‘green’ buildings. However, it cautions that many renewable energy and public transport schemes are controversial and face many obstacles before they become a reality, commenting:

“A feature of schemes which are prioritised and approved at a national level remains that they can get bogged down in months or years of bureaucracy at a local level.”

According to Balfour Beatty, one of the priorities for stimulus packages is generally that they are at a point where they could be accelerated to get ‘spades in the ground’ as soon as possible. This would get liquidity and employment and training opportunities flowing, and infrastructure which can be used as soon as possible.

To achieve the twin objectives of a sustainable recovery and of a package which helps to quickly boost the economy, the paper says that new measures may need to be considered “to sweep away blockages to infrastructure schemes” which have been prioritised as being in the national interest as part of the recovery.

It also emphasises that the silos different parts of the industry operate must be broken down, so designers do not recommend approaches which reduce capital carbon generated during construction, but significantly increase operational and user carbon over the lifetime of the asset.

Calling for organisations that commission infrastructure to be “bold and ambitious and be ready ... to be challenged if they want to achieve meaningful carbon reductions” the paper highlights the fact that “they also hold the purse strings”.

It goes on to suggest this means that they can accelerate the industry’s decarbonisation through measures such as:

• prequalifying contractors on the basis of their carbon performance;
• their ability to engage their supply chain;
• and their ability to drive and adopt innovation

It goes on to emphasise:

“We must do more to make sure we are taking the large number of companies which make up the construction supply chain with us.”

“Finally, the fact that many businesses in the sector have no serious plan for decarbonising their operations cannot be overlooked. Now is the time to rectify this.”

Key points and recommendations

The paper outlines nine recommendations on how the COVID-19 crisis can provide the industry with a platform to accelerate change in key areas such as skills, digitalisation, sustainability and changes to commissioning priorities which will ultimately allow the industry to flourish and thrive post-lockdown.

Key points and recommendations include:

1. The Government should consider establishing a body to oversee and drive through to delivery schemes which are prioritised as being in the national interest as part of the economic recovery.
2. Government and others should also bear in mind that, while new schemes can have long lead times, vital upgrades, renewal and maintenance of existing assets can be much quicker to implement because gaining approval for them is usually much less complicated.
3. Those commissioning infrastructure and the industry itself must use the crisis to finally pave the way for the adoption, at scale of prefabricated, offsite, modular construction and other modern methods of construction (MMC).
4. The industry has the chance now to bring about lasting, positive change by modernising working practices across the sector. Measures should include remote working, flexible working patterns, and a greater commitment to staff working 3 or 4 days a week and to job sharing.
5. To help the industry address its skills shortages, there is potential to attract, retrain and deploy highly skilled engineers from other harder hit sectors which will experience a slower recovery, for example, the aviation and automotive industries.
6. Businesses across the sector must remain committed to apprenticeship and graduate programmes to ensure that the industry is in a position to recover and that it is resilient over the long-term.
7. Cooperation across the industry and close working with Government - wider understanding and cooperation should be built on moving into the post-COVID-19 period through regular, open dialogue between a wide representation of the industry and Government.
8. Given budgetary pressures the public sector will be facing following COVID-19, there is likely to be a temptation to undo the baby steps which have been taken to move away from a focus on lowest price in bids and to begin to drive costs back down to undeliverable levels. This approach is ultimately unsustainable and must be resisted by those commissioning infrastructure.
9. The issue of risk must be addressed – both by the industry’s key customers, and by the sector itself. Commissioners must stop driving down the price below what it costs to deliver schemes: driving down costs generally actually increases the final price.

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