Construction & Asset Management Programme Executive Summary

The vision for the Construction and Asset Management Programme outlined in the NE Improvement and Efficiency Strategy was:

The projects that were developed were expected to reflect the values of effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability.

Pre-RIEP Construction improvement activity
National and regional spend analysis highlighted construction as the highest third party spend of any category of LA expenditure and the National Improvement and Efficiency Strategy of 2007 identified that RIEPs would be expected to support LAs in developing more efficient approaches to construction.
Construction has also been the subject of several reviews during the late 90s and early 00's that were intended to address acknowledged problem areas including cost overruns, time delays, high accident rates, contractual disputes and poor customer satisfaction. The "Rethinking Construction" report was published by the Construction Task Force led by Sir John Egan in 1998 and the industry had spent ten years developing with new ways of ensuring that the construction industry addressed these concerns.

The RIEP Construction and Asset Management Programme Rationale
The Rethinking Construction agenda had generally applied to the "post procurement" phase and the programme board were of the view that some of the RIEP resources should be used to improve the "pre-procurement phase" of a construction so that the principles of innovation and excellence in design and embracing sustainability through the whole life of a construction project were explored and applied to construction projects in the region. The design excellence and Intelligent client concepts were therefore explored to identify the skill sets and behaviours that are required to deliver excellent projects that are fit for purpose, sustainable and are delivered efficiently.

Benchmarking and Performance Management
Benchmarking was a common theme from the early programme board discussions - it was agreed that all councils currently collect data and set targets in relation to performance of design teams, whether construction projects are delivered on time and on budget and on the performance of civic estate but this data is then only used for internal purposes. The board recognised that there are significant benefits available through the of sharing the data between authorities to drive forward improvement activity through identifying and adopting examples of best practice, and sharing lessons learned amongst peer groups to avoid repeating mistakes.

Asset Management
Public Sector property is an area where there are major concerns - Local Authority estate has also been subject to a number of reviews in recent years and the programme board reflected this by prioritising Asset Management, Facilities Management and Carbon Management as areas to explore under the programme. The broad intention of this element of the programme was to develop best practice approaches, identify common areas for improvement and, where possible, develop ways to implement change collaboratively to make future benchmarking of performance on a common platform.

Sustainability
The issue of sustainability is a broad spectrum and very relevant to the construction industry. From the use of material from sustainable sources, through design that minimises energy consumption to realising the economic benefits of construction activity in providing employment opportunities and training a workforce for the future of the industry.
The Targeted Recruitment and Training project provides a way to during the construction phase of a project and again when a building is put into service whether it be a retail, care or leisure facility.

Efficiency
The final theme of the programme was to realise efficiency savings through adopting current approaches to the procurement process itself through the use of Regional Managed Frameworks which have been demonstrated in other areas as a route to "process savings" via streamlined procurement processes and had also generated additional benefits as a result of a consistent approach to management of suppliers.

The Programme Board agreed to meet quarterly and 12 meetings were held in total. The headline achievements of the programme included:

• A Regional Asset Managers Forum with participation of each LA and Fire and Rescue Service in the region and sign-up to future attendance following expiry of the RIEP Funding.
• A property benchmarking forum facilitated by CIPFA Property which includes every Council in the region
• Every Council and Fire and Rescue Service has an up to date Carbon Management Plan based on the Carbon Trust's template and details have been collated to identify potential collaboration
• A business case and implementation programme to establish regional managed frameworks for the delivery of Construction Projects which demonstrates potential efficiency savings of £40M+ over a four year period.
• A set of principles to better understand and the concepts of Design Excellence and Intelligent Client within the region's construction community and to use for the development of future improvement programmes.
• A Targeted Recruitment and Training Portal which has been embedded into the regional construction frameworks which is available for the region's LAs to manage their own TRT programmes
• Benchmarking clubs for Asset Management, Highways and Construction Projects with clear objectives and terms of reference with full sign up by each LA in the region