Construction Industry

Reports and Surveys

In the Handbook, we refer to various reports on the U.K. construction industry.

Here we provide further information and links to additional studies. These notes
provide additional information that will be of interest to many readers but pri-
marily researchers.
The text by Mike Murray and David Langford provides a critical review of 12
of the most significant reports on the U.K. construction industry of the period
1944–1998. Starting with Simon Committee Report of 1944 and ending with the
Eagan report of 1998 have attempted to shape the attitudes and performances of
the parties within the construction contract.
For full details, refer Construction Reports 1944–1998, edited by Murray, M.
and Langford, D. (2003), published by Wiley Blackwell, Chichester, UK, ISBN
0632-05928-1.
Other texts providing backgrounds to the construction industry include the
following:
Change in the Construction Industry: An Account of the UK Construction
Industry Reform Movement 1993-2003
By David M. Adamson, Anthony H. Pollington
Routledge – Taylor and Francis Group
2006
ISBN 0-415-38599-7
This text recognises the period of self-examination that the U.K. construction
industry went through in the decade starting 1993 when government and indus-
try attempted to work together to initiate political and structural changes in the
construction industry through collaborative action and bring about nothing less
than re-organisation of the way that the industry and the participants undertake
its business. The book documents the period in an objective way detailing what

A Handbook for Construction Planning and Scheduling, First Edition. Andrew Baldwin and David Bordoli.
© 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
happened and the reasons for the success and failure of initiatives such as
Movement for Innovation, Rethinking Construction and Constructing Excellence.
Details of these initiatives are available from the following websites:
Rethinking construction report is available from website
http://www.constructingexcellence.org.uk/pdf/rethinking%20construction/
rethinking_construction_report.pdf
U.K. Industry Performance Report 2010 is available from website http://www.
constructingexcellence.org.uk/news/pdf_news_articles/KPIv6.pdf
Current U.K. construction industry initiatives may be found via the Constructing
Excellence website http://www.constructingexcellence.org.uk
Many academic researchers have embraced a view of the U.K. construction indus-
try and its performance. For example, see article Construction Economics and
Statistics, ‘Measuring the competitiveness of the UK construction industry in
2004’. The Abstract of their paper is as follows:
This research provides a sector competitiveness analysis of the UK construc-
tion industry. The study investigates the relative position (in terms of labour
productivity levels and rates of change) of the UK construction industry com-
pared to the construction industries of France, Germany and the USA. A com-
parison is also made with vehicle production and repair in the UK. In summary,
within the constraints/limits of the currently available data, the headline find-
ing suggests that the labour productivity level of the UK is relatively poor
compared to the three other countries studied, especially the USA and France.
In addition, it finds similar (negligible) rates of productivity growth in all four
countries, for the period 1992 to 2001. The main weaknesses in the data con-
cern the definition of industrial classifications within the construction industry,
missing data and problems concerning comparative price levels (PPPs), price
indices and measures of labour input.
For full details see:
Ive, G; Gruneberg, S; Meikle, J; Crosthwaite, D; (2004)
Measuring the competitiveness of the UK construction industry. (Construction
Economics and Statistics , pp. 1–142).
DTI Unique Reference Number (URN) 04/2094

Change in the Construction Industry: An Account of the U.K. Construction ...

By David M. Adamson, Anthony H. Pollington
Routledge – Taylor and Francis Group
2006
ISBN 0-415-38599-7