Nick Raynsford appointed as Chairman of CIC

The Rt Hon Nick Raynsford MP has been appointed as the new Chairman of CIC. Having served as its Deputy Chairman for the past year he now starts a two-year term as Chairman. Stuart Henderson, the former Chairman of CIC now becomes Deputy Chairman.

Addressing the CIC Council meeting Nick Raynsford thanked Stuart Henderson and spoke about some of the challenges and opportunities facing the construction industry:
“A benign economic environment is fundamentally important to the construction industry. I can well remember the dire consequences of the stop/go pattern that characterised the British economy in the 60s, 70s, 80s and early 90s, when the construction industry suffered disproportionately from being used as an economic regulator and when long-term planning, training and partnering were made well-nigh impossible by a lack of confidence in the future. Even within the generally much more favourable context in which we are now operating, confidence can easily be damaged by short-term changes of direction or reviews of investment decisions as the recent unhappy experience of major PFI procurement in the Health Service has demonstrated.

So, we need a context in which the industry can plan with confidence and can develop skills, the production lines, the partnerships and the long-term relationships that are vital to a truly successful industry. This depends both on a generally favourable economic climate that facilitates and indeed encourages private investment and on consistent programmes of public sector procurement to provide the necessary infrastructure to support an expanding economy and a growing population. We all know how important the public sector is, accounting for at least 40% of the total workload of our industry and providing continuing investment at times when demand in the private marked has slackened. The contribution which the unprecendentedly large procurement programmes in sectors such as health, education and the railways has made over the past few years should not be underestimated.

One of the real advances of recent years has been the close co-operation between public and private sectors both in terms of financing new development (the PFI) and in generating mixed developments (for example mixed communities with some housing for market sale and some for social needs). Partnership is indeed crucial to future success and will certainly be put to the test in some of our major projects in the coming years. The 2012 Olympics and Para-Olympics provide a good illustration of both the opportunities and the challenges.”