The Building Safety Act (BSA) is reshaping how projects are procured and delivered, forcing contractors, consultants and clients to collaborate earlier and more transparently, speakers have told an industry conference.
Lilly Gallafent, chief operating officer at Cast Consultancy, said the act was “the most significant thing” to happen to the construction industry during her career.
Speaking at last week’s BESA Annual Conference in London, she explained that gateway two requirements were already transforming procurement by demanding subcontractor input before contracts are signed.
“There are a lot more negotiated PCSAs [preconstruction services agreements] happening. The result is that building contracts are being signed where the contractor actually knows what they’ve got to build,” Gallafent said.
“And that means the contract sum is much more realistic – the programme is likely to be much more realistic.”
She said it was disappointing that this shift was “forced on us from the top [by legislation]” but was optimistic about the outcome, adding: “If we look back in five years, it will have had a material impact on [addressing] the race to the bottom.”
Remi Suzan, commercial director at Gratte Brothers, said the traditional contracting model — with contractors given weeks to price complex designs and accept full responsibility — “doesn’t even make common sense”.
He said: “If someone’s desperate for the job, they’ll accept any level of risk because they need the turnover — and that reinforces it [the traditional model] every time.”
He added: “We just need to stop cutting each other’s throats.”
Noble Francis, economics director at the Construction Products Association, reminded the audience of the role clients play in creating imbalance for contractors.
“All the business models are based around contracting out the cost, activity and risk, but that only indirectly comes from the main contractors — that’s coming initially from clients,” he said.
“The risk doesn’t get dissipated; it just gets forced down the supply chain to the firms least able to deal with it.”
Francis argued the BSA is beginning to rebalance those incentives by making dutyholders legally accountable for safety “You can’t just subcontract out all cost, activity and risk as before,” he said.
Speakers on the panel agreed that trust-based procurement offers the best route forward. Suzan pointed to long-term frameworks using pain-and-gain incentives that reward both sides for delivering value.
And Francis said PCSAs are more likely to build consistent and collaborative relationships than the alternative. “It tends to work better where you have a client consistently working with a supply chain over time, because then you’re building up that trust, and you can work progressively,” he said.
