Since it's relaunch one year ago, the Specialist Engineering Contractors' Group (SEC) has gone from strength to strength. It has successfully placed the issue of retentions abuse on the political agenda and championed integrated project teams. It has also carried out a survey via SEC member associations to determine if local authorities are committed to best practice/best value rather than lowest price. The findings will be presented in a report to the minister of local government.

In addition to political lobbying, SEC is involved with a number of practical initiatives. These include practitioner representation from the specialist sector on the Strategic Forum for Construction, an upcoming series of seminars offering guidance on integrated teams and the recently launched Users' guide to adjudication.

SEC is to be congratulated having successfully established itself as the united and powerful voice of the specialist engineering contractor. It is currently developing an even wider-ranging Specialist Engineering Alliance (SEA), embracing other members of the building services sector including BSRIA, CIBSE and FETA. This new alliance, which has just launched the BSRIA Partnering Toolkit, will make SEC an even greater force to be reckoned with as it works towards achieving its objectives of improving integration in the supply chain.