The CIOB Policy Team Newsletter - June 2022

June with the CIOB Policy team

Welcome to this edition of CIOB’s policy team newsletter.

This edition includes an overview of recent CIOB events including our Diversity in Construction Parliamentary Reception and the recent MoU signing between CIOB and CIDB Malaysia. You can also read more about our stance of the draft Levelling Up & Regeneration Bill, hear about the launch of the Value Toolkit, get a sneak preview of our party conference agenda and read our regular regional overviews (now including Australia).  

We would love to hear from you, so please do get in touch at [email protected].

One thing you need to do...Read about our Diversity in Construction Parliamentary Reception

In the UK only 1% of tradespeople working in construction, including plumbers, carpenters, builders, and electricians are women, compared to North America where the figure rises to 10% or more in a number of regions.

In a survey of 2,000 UK adults by Opinion Matters on behalf of CIOB, it was found around a third of respondents would prefer to hire a female tradesperson, with 12% totally ruling it out. Helping support women in trades was the most common reason given for wanting to hire a female tradesperson. This opinion was expressed by half of female respondents compared with less than a third of men, while some respondents said they’d feel more at ease having a woman carry out work in their home. 

To raise awareness of the UK’s lack of female representation and inspire construction companies to develop more diverse practices, CIOB hosted an event in Parliament, hosted by the Shadow Attorney General for England and Wales, Emily Thornberry MP on 16 June 2022. 

Representatives from the North American campaign group, Tradeswomen Building Bridges and the University of Westminster, attended the event to share their experience of increasing female representation within key trades carrying out work both domestically and on commercial construction projects in USA and Canada. Other stakeholders from across the construction industry, professional bodies and academia also attended.

To read the full article, click here.

CIOB's Analysis of the Levelling Up & Regeneration Bill - Rhetoric vs Reality

Following the Queen’s Speech in May 2022, the UK Government finally unveiled the latest instalment of its flagship domestic agenda – the ‘Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill’. As the Bill progresses through the legislative process, it is timely to remind ourselves of the social and economic issues it seeks to address; and consider where CIOB requires further detail from Government.

The concept of ‘levelling up’, while not entirely new, (re)-appeared on our political radar in 2019, during Boris Johnson’s first speech as Prime Minister; where he pledged to ‘build prosperity, strengthen and level up every part of the country… through higher wages and productivity’.

Levelling up provides significant opportunity for construction and building product companies, commercial and residential subsectors, and related supply chains to develop strategies and capabilities that fuel innovation and growth – to reinvent the ways we operate, invest, plan, and deliver future construction projects, so that they consider and benefit the built, social, and natural environment, and which support the UK’s current and future regeneration and affordable housing needs.

CIOB’s policy and public affairs team will be keeping a close eye on the progress of the Levelling Up & Regeneration Bill as it progresses through the House of Commons. Overall, we have some concerns about the level of detail in the Bill and will look to comment on key areas where possible.

You can read more about our position on the Bill in its current form, here.

Value Toolkit Launch Event

June 2022 saw the Construction Innovation Hub (CIH) celebrate the completion of the Value Toolkit, following a successful development programme with over 200 industry partners, including CIOB.

The Value Toolkit is a pioneering suite of tools that will be used by industry to embed value-based decision making in the built environment sector. It is a government funded industry-led initiative – with roots in the Construction Leadership Council’s Procuring for Value report and set to deliver on the ambitions of the Construction Playbook and the IPA’s Transforming Infrastructure Performance Roadmap.

Eddie Tuttle, Director of Policy, External Affairs and Research at CIOB, said: “At CIOB, we were delighted to be part of the development process for the Value Toolkit and lead on the inclusion of the Human Capital which focused on improving the knowledge, skills and competencies embedded in individuals as well as their physical and mental wellbeing.

“The Human Capital brought together expertise from across the industry to define what human elements we must consider during a project and how can it be measured at each stage.

“The Value Toolkit comes at a crucial time, with businesses are recovering from the impact of Covid-19, which has caused many to look at new and innovative ways of operating. Clients are key to addressing significant challenges in the industry and having a toolkit that helps to facilitate open discussions between clients and its contractors helps us to understand what the key objectives are and how to achieve them will enable better environmental, societal, and economic outcomes. This is something that we continuously strive for at the CIOB.”

The launch of the Value Toolkit also saw the announcement of a new BSI flex standard to underpin value-based decisions making in the sector. The BSI Flex 390: Built environment – Value-based decision-making – Specification, is available for public consultation until Monday 18 July 2022. It can be reviewed and commented on below.

The BSI Flex 390 can be accessed here: BSI Flex 390 v1.0:2022-06 (please note an account is needed to access).

CIOB/CIDB Malaysia MoU Signing

Government officials and senior construction industry figures from Malaysia visited the UK on 21 June 2022, where an agreement was signed with CIOB to help raise standards, increase innovation and technology use, and improve sustainability within the sector.

The group included the Chairman of Malaysia’s Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB), Ir. Yusuf Abdul Wahab, Chief Executive, Datuk Ir. Ahmad ‘Asri Abdul Hamid, the country’s Deputy Minister of works, Datuk Arthur Joseph Kurup and incoming CIOB President, Datuk Seri Dr Michael Yam.

It was the first delegation from abroad to be hosted by the CIOB since the global pandemic stopped international travel in 2020. On 21 June they met with CIOB Director of Membership, Amy Gough, in the City of London, where the agreement between CIOB and CIDB was signed in the dining room of Coopers Hall, a pre-Georgian town house belonging to the Worshipful Company of Coopers.

Caroline Gumble, CEO at CIOB, said: “This agreement further strengthens CIOB’s support for the international community of construction professionals and establishes our relationship with CIDB Malaysia, with whom we share a mission to secure a better future for our industry.

“We look forward to sharing best practice from our respective cultures to promote excellence and professionalism in the built environments in Malaysia, in the UK and globally.”

You can read our full press release covering the event here.

Regional Overviews

• Ireland & Northern Ireland

Joseph Kilroy, Policy & Public Affairs Manager – Ireland, Scotland and Wales, gave an update on the Irish construction sector and presented (remotely) CIOB’s mental health and EDI work at the plenary meeting of Mentup in Budapest. MentUp is a 4-year Horizon 2020 EU-funded project that started on 1 January 2020, with the aim of improving mental health in the workplace by developing, implementing and evaluating a multilevel intervention targeting mental health difficulties in SMEs in the construction, health and ICT sectors. CIOB sits on the project steering committee as an industry representative and has recruited several CIOB members to partake in the study.

Joseph also presented on CIOB’s sustainability agenda as part of a breakout panel discussion at the Construction IT Alliance (CITA) live conference in Dublin on 17 June.  

In Northern Ireland Jocelyne Fleming, Policy & Public Affairs Officer for Scotland attended the Northern Ireland Heritage Skills Group on 24 May and highlighted the CIOB’s conservation conference. 

• Scotland

Jocelyne and Hew Edgar, Associate Director of Policy, had positive meetings with Scottish Government representatives about their Cladding and Remediation initiatives, highlighting the CIOB's work on building safety and quality. CIOB will continue to participate in these discussions as part of the Scottish Government's Cladding Stakeholder Working Group.     

Jocelyne also attended the Cross-Party Groups on Housing and Construction, where topics such as Scotland's accessible housing challenges and the high inflation and supply shortages of construction products and materials were covered, respectively. Additionally, alongside industry partners, Jocelyne attended the COVID-19 Adaptations Workshop hosted by the Scottish Government to discuss previous and ongoing modifications being made across the sector to respond and adapt to COVID-19 protocols and challenges.

• Wales

Two new consultations have been launched in Wales, to which the CIOB is currently drafting its responses. These are the Welsh Government’s Welsh Housing Quality Standard 2023, and the Equality and Social Justice Committee’s consultation on the upcoming Social Partnership and Public Procurement (Wales) Bill.

If you have any questions about the consultations, or opinions that you would like to put forward for consideration, please contact David Kirby, Policy Officer – Wales, on [email protected].

• Australia

Australia's recent Federal election has seen an end to nine years of Coalition rule, with the Australian Labor Party successfully forming Government in its own right in an election most analysts were not willing to publicly claim they were confident about the result until days before. Many analysists predicted a hung parliament infact.

Isaac Ryan, CIOB’s Policy Officer in Australia, has now met with every State Government and has invited the new Prime Minister to address CIOB Members’ Forum in November.  

Building on these introductions, CIOB Australia has now met with other important industry and peak bodies like the Australian Institute of Building, Engineers Australia, Australian Institute of Quantity Surveyors, and NBS Australia in the past week.

Sitting down with Governments and working towards building a relationship with the new Federal Government is paramount to the success of having industry and peak bodies alike include and regard CIOB as a thought leader in the built environment.

CIOB in the media

Having joined us in late May, Media Relations Manager, Becky Trotman, has begun developing a media relations strategy for CIOB, with a view to getting our voice heard in a wider range of media outlets alongside our own Construction Management and Global Construction Review publications.

Following the Diversity in Construction event in parliament, Becky is working with two outlets - Personnel Today and Planning and Building Control Today – on features about increasing diversity in our sector. There has also been media coverage on the recent MoU signing between CIOB and Malaysia’s Construction Industry Development Board, and Caroline Gumble’s comment welcoming the selection of CIOB Fellow, Mark Reynolds, as Co-Chair of the Construction Leadership Council, was also used in some of the media coverage of the appointment.

Coming up in July

As we quickly approach the summer recess (22 July) there is lots of progress planned for draft bills relating to the built environment. Throughout July we will see progress made on the UK Infrastructure Bank Bill, the Procurement Bill, the Schools Bill and the crucial Levelling Up & Regeneration Bill all of which will be in their committee stages in July. We will continue to update members on the progress of these bills through this newsletter.

Outside of the draft bills mentioned above there are also suits of private members bills being brought forward in the House of Lords which may impact on the construction industry. These include a Local Authority (Housing Allocation) Bill being brought forward by Lord Mann, a Domestic Premises (Electrical Safety Certificate) Bill sponsored by Lord Foster of Bath and a Healthy Homes Bill being taken forward by Lord Crisp. All of these pieces of legislation will be progressing through their second readings in July. Should any pass to the committee stage they will likely be heard in September after the summer recess.

Alongside this, there are a number of key oral questions that will be raised by MPs and Peers throughout July that are of interest to CIOB and its members. These include:

• Lord Londesborough – A question relating to the shortage of workers in England.
• Lord Woodley – A question on improving employment rights for workers in Great Britain.
• Lord Kennedy – A question on ensuring services charges paid by leaseholders are fair and reasonable.
• Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy – Oral questions session on 12 July.

Lastly there will be an interesting Westminster Hall debate taking place relating to a petition on BTEC qualifications which will be an opportunity for CIOB to help increase the perception of the construction industry amongst school leavers.

If you made it this far...Check out CIOB's agenda for party conference season

CIOB will once again be attending the various party conferences, raising awareness of the construction management profession and opportunities in the wider built environment.    

Plans are yet to be finalised; however, we will have a presence at both Labour and Conservative conference working in partnership with our sister professional bodies, RIBA, RICS and RTPI. Additionally, we are looking at opportunities with other organisations such as Centre for Cities and the Federation of Master Builders (FMB).

If you are planning to attend either Conference or would like to attend any of our events, then please contact [email protected].

Staying in Touch

Thank you for reading this month’s update from the CIOB policy team. We will be back in your inbox next month with more information about what the team is up to, what is going on in Parliament and built environment news to look out for. 

All the best,

The CIOB policy team

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