Do we need more regulation or less? It’s a familiar conundrum in construction. Regulation lays down standards, brings poorer performers up to that standard, allows peer-to-peer comparison and helps to level the playing field. But it can stifle innovation, limit autonomy and add cost.
The conundrum is played out in CM stories this month. On the one hand, the government is signalling a reduction in the regulatory burden on housebuilding, opening up a new front in the Red Tape Challenge. (Our web news story on the proposed rationalisation gave CM readers an early heads-up before the national press). On the other, there are calls for greater regulation and standardisation in public sector frameworks to weed out practices that are blighting competition and failing to deliver best value.
Certainly, what The Guardian calls the “bonfire of the building regulations” could bring some mid-winter warmth to the sector. Assuming Building Regs are to retain their full force, there is a case for making them less opaque, and plenty of red tape to singe. The Code for Sustainable Homes, Building for Life, Secured by Design, Lifetime Homes and the like usually began life with advisory or voluntary status, but, as the Housing Forum’s Rationalising Regulation for Growth and Innovation report showed in April, they then tended to mutate into compliance regimes.
At the same time, we report growing concern over the patchy performance of public sector frameworks. Well-run frameworks are to everyone’s advantage — saving public sector costs, rewarding collaboration, and creating “social value”. Even the SMEs that have long argued frameworks leave them out in the cold are slightly changing their tune : the National Federation of Builders now says its SME members can do more to make themselves more attractive to framework clients.
Nonetheless, that leaves plenty of poor practice, with framework operators exploiting their increasingly dominant market position and presiding over soaring bid costs. Then there’s a culture of non-disclosure of data that makes it impossible to compare one organisation against its neighbours or a national average.
Would a voluntary code intended to raise standards in frameworks raise operational costs? Would it evolve into something that limits clients’ ability to respond to the local market? How should we square the regulation-liberalisation circle?
In fact, there’s no inherent contradiction between introducing standards in one area, just as you’re questioning them in another. A national standard for frameworks is about bringing the transparency that’s taken hold in other areas of public life into an area that’s been left to self-regulate; rationalising regulation is about pruning back overgrowth in a sector where regulation has run riot. In both cases, the only contradiction would lie in seeing the problem, then failing to respond.
Elaine Knutt, editor
