001004g-dfp DFP Minister Launches Construction Industry Forum Department of Finance and Personnel 4 October 2000

4 October 2000
MINISTER LAUNCHES CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY FORUM

Mr Mark Durkan MLA, Minister of Finance and Personnel, today launched the Construction Industry Forum for Northern Ireland, which will provide a strategically focused interface between Government and the construction industry.

Outlining the background to the establishment of the Forum, Mr Durkan said: "The previous Government/industry consultative arrangements, set up in 1974, had proved incapable of providing the flexible, open interface needed to deal effectively with the ongoing changes affecting both the industry and its Government clients and has resulted in today's establishment of the Forum."

Mr Durkan paid tribute to the Construction Industry Group (CIG), the umbrella organisation set up in 1998 to represent all sections of the construction industry, and which will be a key element of the Forum. The Minister said, "The establishment of the CIG has been particularly welcome because it allows the industry to tackle, in a unified and cohesive way, the challenges facing it at the present time.

"However there is still some ground to be made up if Northern Ireland is to catch up with the rest of the UK in implementing various Government procurement initiatives and in achieving Government's aim of becoming a best practice client. A new body, the Government Construction Clients Group (GCCG), which has just been set up, will have the dual role of taking this forward and also bringing a unified public sector voice to bear in the Forum."

Welcoming the formation of the Forum, the Minister said, "It should serve to establish a value-added and strategic relationship between Government, the industry and the Unions and it will provide an opportunity for us to work together to deliver the outcomes we all want to see.

"These include:

a more effective and efficient construction industry whose concerns are heard;

a Government client "best in class" with a unified approach to procurement;

a trust culture in place of the old adversarial culture; and

an acceptance of new thinking and openness to innovation; achieving those outcomes will prove a challenge to all of us but it is one where the benefits on offer more than justify the effort required".

Welcoming the formation of the new body Mr John Cole, Chairman of the Construction Group for Northern Ireland said, "The Construction Industry Group for Northern Ireland welcomes this excellent initiative which for the first time provides an appropriate Forum for regular discussion between Government in Northern Ireland and the local construction industry. We look forward to working co-operatively with Government in this new Forum with the objective of helping to ensure that the local construction industry is able to respond even more efficiently and effectively to the future needs of the people of Northern Ireland. I would like to thank the Minister for his interest and encouragement."

NOTES TO EDITORS:

In Northern Ireland, responsibility for managing the Government interface with the construction industry is located within the Department of Finance and Personnel, specifically in Accommodation and Construction Division. Prior to the establishment of the present devolved administration, it was the responsibility of the former DoE(NI).

Up to 1999 that interface, by and large, took the form of the Northern Ireland Construction Industry Advisory council (NICIAC), a Non-Departmental Public Body (NDPB) set up in 1974 to advise Government on matters affecting the building and civil engineering industry. The Council, which was chaired by the appropriate DoE(NI) Minister, was made up of 11 unpaid members drawn from a range of interests relevant to the construction industry.

Partly because of the formal nature of its meetings and partly due to the fact that, especially in its later years, its meetings tended to concentrate on statistics and the impact of Government spending plans on the construction industry, the generally shared view on both sides was that NICIAC had not been particularly effective for some time. Its meetings gradually decreased in frequency and, in fact, no meeting took place after late 1996, following which its membership lapsed.

In November of last year the Direct Rule Minister (Lord Dubs) agreed that NICIAC should be dissolved and that in principle it should be replaced by a new liaison structure to be known as the Construction Industry Forum for Northern Ireland. That decision followed a series of meetings between officials and industry representatives at which both sides:

recognised the considerable amount of change which had taken place in GB since 1974 in the management of the interface between Government and the construction industry;

acknowledged that much of that change stemmed from two major reports in GB (the Latham and Egan reports) on the industry of which Northern Ireland needed to take account;

accepted that enhanced consultative arrangements between Government, the industry and the Unions were essential to allow close collaboration on important issues and initiatives; and

agreed that NICIAC did not provide a suitable vehicle to allow this to happen.

The new consultative arrangements centre on the Construction Industry Forum for Northern Ireland which will not be an NDPB. The Forum will be chaired by a senior DFP official with responsibility for construction sponsorship. Other Departments will be represented according to agenda items.

Representation from the industry side will be drawn principally from the five colleges making up the Construction Industry Group for Northern Ireland (CIGNI) which was established by the industry in 1998 to allow it to come together to address key issues of common interest. In this respect, CIGNI largely mirrors the Construction Industry Board in GB and is ideally placed to represent all shades of the industry. The Forum will also have TUS representation and it is intended that it should meet quarterly.

In order to ensure that there is a co-ordinated public sector voice in the Forum, a Government Construction Clients Group has been set up at official level. The Client Group will also be chaired by the senior DFP official with construction sponsorship responsibility and will draw its membership from Northern Ireland Departments.