Presidential roundtable summary: can the civil engineering sector deliver on the government’s infrastructure ambitions?

In January, the ICE hosted the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and senior stakeholders for a roundtable discussion. It covered the CMA’s interim report, as part of its market study on the provision of road and rail infrastructure by the civil engineering sector. 

The roundtable was chaired by ICE President David Porter and explored the following key themes:

• Improved client-side capability and expertise can drive better supplier performance. Value creation rather than lowest cost needs to inform bid selection.
• Innovation is constrained by a lack of supplier investment and additional requirements imposed by clients. Changes to intellectual property settings in contracts would be useful to incentivise industry-led innovation.
• The Construction Playbook addresses many of the issues facing the sector, and its use should be mandated for government departments. Local government reorganisation and devolution provide additional opportunities to improve best practice adoption.
• The industry is losing the argument for infrastructure in the court of public opinion. Everyone, including the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) have a role in rebuilding a social licence. 

These insights fed directly into the CMA’s final report which has now been published.