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Construction needs action on several connected problems at once: unstable policy and funding, weak maintenance, planning and housing constraints, new safety duties, scarce net-zero resources, poor productivity evidence and fragmented skills. The Building the Future Commission, a year-long Building initiative examined by James Wates in his 6 January 2023 comment, gave those pressures a structured diagnosis and proposed changes for government, clients and industry. Its recommendations are a programme for reform, not proof that adoption or measurable results have already followed.
Why the call for immediate action matters
A construction business can be commercially sound and still be undermined by forces outside its site boundary. A late policy change can alter a design; a planning delay can strand labour and equipment; a squeezed client budget can remove the early design work that prevents later defects. New building-safety obligations add essential work, while the people and information needed to deliver it are often spread across separate organisations. The result is not one isolated efficiency problem but a chain of decisions that affects cost, time, safety, carbon and public value together.
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That is the significance of the title “Construction needs solutions – and it needs them now”. The argument is for coordinated decisions rather than a single app, material or procurement slogan. The Commission’s later findings provide the clearest available map of what needs attention and who has the ability to act.
What the Building the Future Commission was
A year-long industry inquiry
Building ran the Building the Future Commission for 12 months during 2023. It brought together 19 commissioners and examined the built environment through eight broad workstreams, with consultation across the wider industry. The final report was intended to set out recommendations for improving construction and the places it creates.
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The 19-person panel and 12-month timetable describe the inquiry’s scope; they are not measures of productivity, safety or profitability. Building also warned that the recommendations emerged from its wider work and might not represent every commissioner’s individual view. They should therefore be read as a reform agenda for debate and implementation, not as a binding industry standard or evidence of consensus.
The eight problems the Commission identified
1. Economic pressure on projects and margins
Rising or unpredictable costs can compress both project budgets and company margins. When a tender is forced below a realistic delivery cost, firms may defer investment, reduce development time or carry risk they cannot control. Clients can face claims, delay and lower quality later. A durable response requires commercial models that recognise whole-life value and allocate risk to the party able to manage it, rather than treating the lowest initial price as the only objective.
2. Policy churn and weak investment certainty
Frequent changes in policy, standards or funding make long-term planning difficult. Businesses hesitate to train people, buy equipment or develop manufacturing capacity when the market signal may change before the investment pays back. Public bodies also struggle to maintain a consistent pipeline. Stable, multi-year policy does not remove all risk, but it allows companies and clients to price, sequence and improve work with greater confidence.
3. Underinvestment in public-building maintenance
Schools, hospitals and other public buildings need planned maintenance as well as new construction. Deferring inspections and renewals can turn a manageable repair into an urgent closure, while poor building condition affects the people who use the facility. Treating maintenance as a predictable part of asset management would support safer, more efficient buildings and a steadier workload than relying on occasional emergency projects.
4. Limited and expensive resources for net zero
Decarbonisation depends on more than an operational-energy target. Designers and contractors need affordable low-carbon products, reliable information about their performance, skilled installers and a client willing to fund work whose benefits may accrue over decades. If materials, expertise or finance are unavailable, a carbon commitment can remain a specification rather than a delivered outcome. Early decisions about orientation, fabric, servicing and reuse generally have more influence than late substitutions.
5. Housing supply and planning constraints
Housing delivery is affected by land, infrastructure, planning capacity, local requirements and the time needed to secure consent. Delays hold up sites and make it harder for builders to maintain an efficient workforce. A faster process must still protect design quality, safety and community interests; the Commission’s point is that fragmented decisions and uncertain timetables can prevent supply from responding to need.
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6. Confusion about building-safety requirements
New building-safety duties are essential, but uncertainty about roles, records and gateways creates risk. A project needs a clear account of who is responsible for design decisions, evidence, change control and handover. If each organisation keeps information in a different format, the duty to demonstrate compliance becomes harder and more expensive. Clear guidance, competent people and reliable information management are practical prerequisites, not administrative extras.
7. No sufficiently joined-up construction voice in government
Construction is large and diverse, spanning housing, infrastructure, specialist trades, manufacturers, consultants and facilities teams. A fragmented representation makes it harder for government to understand how a policy will work on a live project or across a supply chain. Better coordination would not mean giving one organisation control of the sector; it would mean creating dependable channels for evidence, feedback and accountability.
8. Fragmented skills and education
Training routes do not always match the skills that projects require. Digital information management, modern methods of construction, retrofit, safety assurance and low-carbon design all need capability alongside traditional craft skills. Employers, colleges and professional bodies must be able to see demand early enough to shape courses and apprenticeships. Without that connection, labour shortages become a structural limit on productivity and quality.
What solutions the Commission put forward
The Commission’s response combines public-sector decisions with changes in how projects are designed, procured and measured. The table separates the proposed direction from the result that a responsible client or business should be able to check.
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1Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches2Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors3Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute| Problem | Proposed direction | Primary actors | Evidence of progress |
|---|---|---|---|
| Economic and policy uncertainty | Long-term policy and investment certainty | Government, public clients, investors | Published multi-year priorities, stable funding and fewer late changes |
| Low productivity visibility | Better productivity measurement and evidence | Clients, contractors, industry bodies, researchers | Consistent measures of time, cost, quality, safety and carbon |
| Late or incomplete design | Earlier design development and collaboration | Clients, designers, contractors and specialists | Resolved interfaces, coordinated information and fewer avoidable changes |
| Fragmented delivery | More effective procurement and fairer collaboration | Clients and supply chains | Clear risk allocation, timely decisions and payment performance |
| Manual, repeated production | Design for manufacture and assembly (DfMA) | Designers, manufacturers, contractors | Repeatable components, controlled quality and reduced site rework |
| Disconnected project information | Building information modelling (BIM) and information-management systems | All parties handling project data | Reliable, usable information from design through handover |
| Skills, safety and net-zero gaps | Integrated attention to competence, safety and carbon | Government, educators, clients and employers | Competent teams, auditable safety information and measured carbon outcomes |
Why government has a distinctive role
Provide a stable client and policy environment
Public policy sets the conditions in which private firms decide whether to invest in people, plant and manufacturing. A credible long-term pipeline, consistent standards and early notice of changes let the supply chain plan instead of repeatedly mobilising and demobilising. Stability should be paired with transparent review: a policy can be adjusted when evidence changes, but the reason, timetable and transition arrangements need to be clear.
Reinstate a chief construction adviser
The Commission’s final report, The Long-term Plan for Construction, announced on 24 January 2024, prominently recommended reinstating a chief construction adviser. The proposed role would help government act as a better client and support decisions based on long-term value rather than the cheapest immediate transaction. The recommendation is not evidence that the post has been reinstated or that its effects have been measured; implementation must be verified separately.
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Involve industry at the earliest design stage
Government and industry collaboration is most valuable before a brief has hardened into a detailed design and contract. Early input can test buildability, logistics, maintenance, carbon and safety assumptions while changes are still affordable. It also gives manufacturers and specialist trades time to develop capacity instead of being asked to solve fundamental problems after procurement.
What clients and project teams can change now
Procure for value, not only lowest price
A procurement strategy should state how quality, safety, programme reliability, whole-life cost and carbon will be judged. Risk belongs with the organisation that controls it; transferring unknown ground, design or interface risk to a contractor rarely removes it from the project. Clear scopes, realistic allowances and prompt decisions reduce the incentive to protect margin through defensive pricing or claims.
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Early design is where teams can compare options, coordinate structure and services, plan maintenance access and test construction sequences. Clients should define the information needed at each decision gate and involve the people who will manufacture, install and operate the asset. The aim is not to freeze every detail prematurely, but to resolve high-consequence choices before they become expensive site changes.
Use DfMA where repetition and control justify it
DfMA can move suitable work into a controlled manufacturing environment and reduce repeated site operations. It is not a universal answer: transport, tolerances, interfaces, local variation and production capacity must be assessed first. A project should identify components that genuinely benefit from repeatability, then design the connections, sequencing and quality checks around them.
Make BIM and information management operational
BIM is useful when it supports a defined decision or handover requirement, not when a model is created without an information purpose. Agree naming, responsibility, approval and change-control rules; maintain one dependable source for current information; and test that the operator can use the data after completion. The same discipline helps teams demonstrate building-safety compliance and avoid working from obsolete drawings.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Skills, safety and net zero must be planned together
Training should follow the work that policy and clients are asking the sector to deliver. Employers can share forward demand with colleges and professional bodies, provide supervised experience and assess competence for the actual tasks people will perform. Digital coordination, retrofit, low-carbon installation and safety-critical work require structured learning, not informal assumptions that experience in one discipline automatically transfers to another.
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Safety information should be created as the design develops, updated when changes are approved and handed to the people who will operate and maintain the building. Net-zero requirements should be treated similarly: set a measurable baseline, record assumptions about products and energy, and verify performance rather than relying on an intention in the brief. These processes reinforce one another because competent teams and trustworthy information reduce rework, unsafe improvisation and wasted materials.
A practical sequence for turning recommendations into delivery
- Set the outcome. The client should define the required safety, service, programme, whole-life cost and carbon outcomes before selecting a procurement route.
- Map decisions and responsibilities. Identify who owns each design, approval, information and change decision, including specialist and operational input.
- Test feasibility early. Bring contractors, manufacturers and facilities staff into option reviews while scope, logistics and interfaces can still change.
- Choose evidence and tools. Specify the BIM information, DfMA studies, surveys and performance measures that answer real project questions.
- Contract for collaboration. Align payment, risk, incentives and escalation so that participants can report problems before they become claims or defects.
- Verify and learn. At handover and during operation, compare actual cost, programme, safety, energy, carbon and maintenance results with the original brief, then feed the lessons into the next project.
How to judge whether change is working
The Commission did not provide a named statistic showing that its call for solutions had succeeded. A serious implementation programme therefore needs its own baseline and review dates. Useful measures include design changes after contract award, time spent waiting for decisions, defect and rework rates, payment periods, safety observations and reportable events, training completion, information defects at handover, operational energy and embodied-carbon estimates. Each measure needs a defined scope and method; a falling number is not automatically an improvement if reporting has simply weakened.
Results should be reviewed by project stage and by asset type. A hospital refurbishment, a new housing scheme and a factory-made component have different starting conditions. Publishing the assumptions behind a result makes comparisons more credible and helps the sector distinguish a repeatable improvement from a one-off success.
What remains to be established
The interim findings published in September 2023 and the final report announced in January 2024 describe diagnoses and recommendations. They do not, by themselves, establish that government adopted every proposal, that the construction industry agreed with every recommendation or that productivity, safety, cost or carbon outcomes improved. Adoption, funding, accountability and measured results must be assessed as policies and projects develop.
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That qualification does not weaken the central message. The eight challenges interact, so isolated fixes will be fragile. Stable policy without competent people cannot deliver; digital information without early collaboration will document confusion; a low-carbon target without money, materials and skills will remain aspirational. Construction needs solutions now because each project already makes decisions that either lock in those problems or begin to remove them.
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