The Construction Leadership Council (CLC) is abandoning a tech project aimed at eliminating retentions due to a lack of industry engagement.
In October 2023 the CLC announced it was launching a pilot project with trade body Actuate UK, Cranfield University and not-for-profit Get It Right Initiative to tackle project defects at source.
By using anonymous project data, the project would create a “quality metric” which could identify when and where defects are likely to occur.
At the time the CLC said the scheme would build on “previously successful data gathering schemes” to address late payment and health and safety concerns, adding that these had “produced tangible results and had a profound impact on the prevailing culture”.
But the CLC has now said that its proof of concept pilot had been hampered by a “low response rate”, adding that “the project will conclude at this stage”.
It added that “it is clear the construction industry will not voluntarily provide project data on defects”.
In a summary of the pilot’s findings, the CLC said it found that “the data-driven method can measure and evaluate the Error Frequency Rate (EFR) metric for construction projects and companies, and provide useful insights for improvement”.
The pilot found that outstanding defects at project completion increase with project value and complexity. It also found an increased number of outstanding defects in the new public housing and new private industrial sectors.
However, it was not able to identify cost-efficient measures for mitigating the EFR and it was undermined by “the low and incomplete response rate for the online survey”.
“Significant work was undertaken to encourage clients and contractors to participate in the pilot project and help test the proof of concept for this innovative work,” the CLC said in its summary document.
“All information was anonymised and managed by Centre for Design Engineering at Cranfield University.
“The project sponsors, the CLC, had no knowledge of who had contributed, yet despite much enthusiasm and agreement that the industry would benefit from the sharing of data on defects, the number of participants was disappointing.”
It added: “The low response rate has highlighted the challenges that exist in obtaining information about defects and performance within the construction sector from firms in the supply chain. Due to the adversarial nature of contracts, the question that is always asked when information is requested is ‘how could this be used against me?’.
“This is justified because many projects end in recrimination, claim and counter claim. However, this is not conducive to an industry-wide approach to improving standards of performance and quality.”
CLC said despite their decision to end the project, the Get It Right Initiative will continue to work on developing an app which uses the EFR.
In June Mark Reynolds, CLC co-chair and chief executive of Mace, told CN’s First Sight podcast that government intervention is needed to get rid of retentions as there is not enough support for the measure in industry.
Cash retentions are used throughout all tiers of the construction supply chain and see clients withhold a security against defects – typically around 5 per cent of a contract value. The practice often causes cash flow issues an – according to the CLC – is contributing to soaring insolvency rates.
