Sir John Egan, author of the controversial Rethinking Construction or "Egan" report, as it has come to be known, is heading a new government body, the Strategic Forum, which met for the first time last month. It replaces the Construction Industry Board, which wound up in June, and is charged with advancing the Rethinking Construction agenda and health and safety improvement.
Egan is very clear about where the problem with health and safety lies. "You can't fix problems with health and safety by bringing in special programmes," he says. "You fix it by fixing everything, you fix the whole process. The people are still getting killed, only now they've got helmets, shoes and yellow tabards on, because if you are working out of process, you're still at grave risk."
Process improvement
So the answer, according to Egan, is process improvement, the driving message behind his 1998 report. And he claims that process improvement, by which he means planning the whole project before beginning work on site, getting supply chains together early and making sure competent people carry out the work, can bring about startling results. "From the data we had at BAA, we found out you could cut out 90% of accidents by preplanning the whole project process and by having qualified people carry it out. It's not the people at the workface who need to improve, as much as project planning."
Egan wants to force construction companies to plan their projects more accurately and to invest in training. "We will probably have to invoke some of the Health and Safety Executive rules," he says. "There are already rules in place from the European Commission which invoke the necessity of a planning safety manager or supervisor on each project. I would like to find some mechanism that prevents people from starting a project until it has been planned and until it is made sure that every process is going to be tackled by competent people. I will be asking for pretty draconian moves from the government and private clients not to fund projects that are badly planned. If we can do that, we will make much more progress than through any other single thing."
Despite his decision to wade back into the mire of construction reform, Egan has mixed feelings about the reaction to his report. "The people on the Rethinking Construction taskforce can be pleased with what they did. My frustration is that the good practice established through the Movement for Innovation projects hasn't spread more quickly.
"A lot of companies in the industry are not spending enough time learning from themselves. In many cases, one part of a company works in a very excellent way on a project and yet the rest of the company doesn't learn from them. So there are a whole host of things we have to do to enable companies to learn from themselves. It's something we will be addressing in the Strategic Forum. We also have to expect a higher degree of leadership from the people in the industry."
He adds: "There is too much odd-jobbing. One thing I'm surprised about after Rethinking Construction is that more expert supply chains haven't got together and demonstrated their expertise in terms of quality, customer requirement and cost effectiveness to sell into projects. Companies have to start understanding what they do best and make it very simple for people to buy into their expertise."
He admits that although the report's agenda may have progressed from being "lampooned" by the construction press and the industry in 1998, it is by no means a complete success, and he is realistic about the task that faces him. "It's a work in progress. We've got a few more clients and some construction companies doing things better, but we've got a huge amount to do to get this industry up to world-class standards."
Faith and a warning
Despite his detractors and the uphill struggle he faces to change the industry, Egan is still passionate about his reforms and convinced of the report's continuing worth. "What we are preaching in Rethinking Construction is very straightforward stuff and absolutely the basis of improvement. When you read the report, it's obvious this is the right thing."
Surprisingly, Egan still has faith in the construction industry's ability to change, but he sounds a warning of what could happen if it doesn't take process improvement seriously. "The construction industry will either be entirely foreign-owned in the future, like the merchant banking and car industries, or we will have some stars building up.
"One of the things that has encouraged me to have another go is the hope that we will get some absolutely superstar, world-class competitors growing up in the UK. I would really feel that my efforts have been successful if that actually happens."
Personal
HomeThree houses in Warwick, London and Switzerland
Family
Married with two daughters who are 28 and 32
Favourite website
Asite (Egan is chairman of the portal)
Car
A Jaguar XKR sportscar with an open top
Hobbies
I play tennis, read a lot. We go skiing for a couple of months every year; that’s why we’ve got the place in Switzerland. I enjoy the theatre and music. I play the piano a bit and go jogging every morning
Source
Construction Manager