Farmer Review of the UK Construction Labour Model

The report was written by Mark Farmer, the founding director and CEO of Cast Consultancy It had been commissioned through the UK Construction Leadership Council at the request of the departments for Communities and Local Government (CLG) and for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). The government were keen to reform the industry which had a reputation for poor productivity, poor reputation as a good career with young people, a reliance on casual labour, poor investment in training and a fragmented supply chain. Repeated government reviews since the early 1990s has done little to transform it. Farmer stated that he had found that the arrangements for training in the industry were dysfunctional and that investment in research and development was almost non-existent. As a result, the sector's productivity was low, levels of innovation were poor and cost inflation was high. He also found a shortage of skilled workers exacerbated by a larger number of people leaving the industry each year than were joining it. == Impact ==

The official government response to the report was issued in July 2017 and written by Baron Prior, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the BEIS; Alok Sharma, Housing and Planning minister at the CLG and Anne Milton, Minister of State for Skills and Apprenticeships at the Department for Education and Minister for Women. They agreed to implement all of Farmer's recommendations except the last - the 0.5% project value tax - saying they feared it would reduce the number of construction projects carried out. They committed to a reform of the CITB and its levy and stated that there was support for greater use of off-site manufacturing in an existing housing white paper. Farmer commented that he was happy that the government had agreed to implement the vast majority of his recommendations and that it was working to bring about a "modern and fit for purpose construction industry". The review was described in the press at the time of its release as a "damning report" that warned that the industry faced "inexorable decline" unless it reforms. In July 2018 the Farmer Review was cited as an example of the reforms needed for the construction industry in New Zealand. The CLC's July 2018 report Procuring for Value built on the Farmer Review and advocated serious reform for the procurement and tender process with a shift away from the "lowest cost bid" mentality towards an approach that takes into account quality and risk. == References ==