Annual Review 2021-22
CECA Wales - Annual Review 2021-22
What can you expect from this document? This document sets out the themes and priorities that CECA Wales will pursue over the next 12 months. These are based on feedback from our members, our partners and an honest appraisal of the challenges and opportunities which have surfaced over the last 12 months as well as those that lie ahead of us. Mark Bowen: Chair CECA Wales
Ed Evans: Director CECA Wales
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CECA Wales - Annual Review 2021-22
So, what’s changed ove the last 12+ months?!
Every year we revisit our priorities for the forthcoming months, we review what’s changed in Wales and beyon and we consider what we need to do to make sure tha business environment is as good as it can be for our m That means looking back, considering our current situation and what we need to do for the future. And given how “strange” the last few years have been it’s even more important that we take stock now. Last year, 2021, following hot on the heels of 2020, continued the trend of “uncertainty” which was a departure from fairly stable conditions over the last decade. The Covid19 pandemic has created huge disruption across the globe and the effects of leaving the European Union have become far more apparent, particularly as the “transition period” has come to an end. Both continue to challenge “the way we do things” with impacts on inflation, materials and labour. COP26 also focused our minds on the dramatic challenges of climate change which, if we fail to respond, threatens our future on a more dramatic level than either Brexit or the pandemic.
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g 12 nd at the members. Within Wales, CECA Wales, as part of the Welsh Construction Federation Alliance (WCFA), has played a key role in establishing the Welsh Ministerial Construction Forum bringing together public and private sectors to address industry concerns. The 6-priority areas include visibility of workflow, payment practices, procurement, people and skills, the planning and permitting process and, as you would expect, climate change and the need to decarbonise our infrastructure. The themes for CECA Wales capture all of these 6-priority areas either directly or indirectly. Government policy in Wales is moving at pace towards a “net zero” future and this is no more apparent than in the area of transportation with roads projects being “paused” or cancelled as we await the outcome of the Welsh Government’s “Roads Review”. Either way it is likely to lead to more change (and potentially in England and Scotland too) with investment streams being redirected to lower carbon transport solutions especially around rail, bus travel, active travel and investment in our existing assets. The recent Partnership Agreement between Welsh Labour and Plaid Cymru is also placing great emphasis on social housing, renewable energy projects, water quality and supply, biodiversity and flood risk management. The report Decarbonising Our Infrastructure (Datgarboneiddio Ein Seilwaith) produced by CECA Wales following our
conference with the Association of Consultancy and Engineering (ACE) and the County Surveyors Society (CSS) already gives us an action plan to take forward changes across our sector.
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CECA Wales - Annual Review 2021-22
The recruitment and retention of a highly skilled workforce is always a challenge but the last couple of years has made this even more evident. Whilst there are opportunities to address this through new construction qualifications in Wales and a push to expand the application of social value criteria this will need considerable effort and energy and will mean contractors having to take a higher profile in this area. The procurement landscape is also changing with legislation moving forward at a UK level following the departure from the EU (Transforming Public
Procurement) and in Wales with the introduction of a Social Partnership and Public Procurement Bill. However, procurement continues to be a challenging
issue for contractors with inconsistency of application by clients and bureaucratic procedures reducing the value that contractors can deliver. David Mosey’s recent review of frameworks, Constructing The Gold Standard, which incorporates previous CECA views, provides recommendations to address some of the industry concerns. The whole concept of “value-based procurement”, incorporating social value criteria and carbon, also offer opportunities to transform this challenging area but this will only happen if construction clients and their advisors, as well as contractors and consultants, embrace these opportunities.
And the importance of partnerships as a means of delivering improvement for members remains as important as ever especially as more and more of our engagement has been done online and the impact of our work with clients has been strengthened through these partnerships.
So, as we move into 2022 we will focus on the following industry themes: 1.
Promotion: We will promote the value of infrastructure
2.
Procurement: We will work with all our partners to streamline
3.
People: We will seek to attract new people to our industry and
4.
Partnership: We will continue to develop, maintain and grow
investment at economic, social and environmental levels
public procurement practices
develop our existing workforces for the future
partnerships with other organisations to better serve our members
5.
Decarbonisation: We will support our members and partners to reduce the carbon impact of our infrastructure operations
And if you want to know what this will mean in actions on the ground then read on!
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CECA Wales - Annual Review 2021-22
Promotion 1.
We’ll promote the value of infrastructure investment at economic, social and environmental levels by:
A.
Reviewing the new Wales Infrastructure Investment Plan (WIIP) and
B.
Reviewing the latest government budgets (Welsh and UK) and prepare a
C.
Influencing decision makers on a new approach to social value/
prepare a report on “the value of the sector”
report on infrastructure investment decisions to inform members
community benefits
2.
We’ll continue to raise the profile of CECA Wales amongst clients, politicians and policy makers by:
A.
Continuing to engage with politicians at appropriate events
B.
Maintaining our Annual Conference with our partners
C.
Reviewing CECA Wales’ profile amongst partners and stakeholders
3.
We’ll inform and influence policy making by:
A.
Inputting to Welsh and UK government reviews
B.
Taking a lead role on appropriate and specific industry groups
C.
Engaging with and inputting to the National Infrastructure Commission for Wales (NICW)
4.
We’ll improve internal and external communications by:
A.
Preparing a communications plan for 2022
B.
Reviewing the impact of the CECA Wales website
C.
Maintaining the CECA Wales weekly briefing
D.
Engaging with all media to provide interviews, articles, blogs and press releases
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CECA Wales - Annual Review 2021-22
Procurement 1.
We’ll continue to work across the sector to streamline public procurement practices by:
A.
Meeting regularly with key clients
B.
Working with the Welsh Construction Forum
C.
Inputting directly to the Forum Working Groups
D.
2.
Working with partners to develop a “value based procurement” toolkit
Inform and influence public procurement policy:
A.
Promoting the David Mosey review of frameworks, Constructing The
B.
Inputting to the development of the Welsh Government’s Social
Gold Standard, amongst clients to pursue best practice
Partnership and Public Procurement Bill and reviewing the outcome of the UK Government Transforming Public Procurement Bill
C.
Inputting to the Welsh Government proposals for a Public Procurement Centre of Excellence
3.
We’ll support initiatives to improve efficiency and productivity across the sector by:
A.
Working with clients to publish their 12-24 month work programmes
B.
Informing and influencing discussions on fair payment and retentions
C.
Promoting more equitable forms of risk management amongst clients
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CECA Wales - Annual Review 2021-22
People 1. A.
We’ll seek to attract more people to the industry by:
Continuing to work with Qualifications Wales, City and Guilds and WJEC to develop and roll out the new Construction and Built Environment qualifications at GCSE, A-level and Foundation Apprentice level
B.
Increasing our engagement with schools and colleges to support the new Welsh curriculum – utilising social value opportunities wherever possible
C.
Supporting new pathways into the industry including routes for
D.
Increasing our engagement with younger members through our
E.
Working with the Southeast Wales Civils Framework team to
employing ex-offenders and ex-services personnel
Foundations Group
develop a model for better delivery of social value.
2. A. B. C.
3.
We’ll support the development of our people by:
Delivering an NEC4 training and development programme for members in 2022 Hosting the CECA Wales Annual Awards 2022 Delivering the CECA Wales Annual Leadership Challenge in the north and south
We’ll ensure the health, safety and wellbeing of our people by:
A.
Promoting and supporting CECA’s “Stop. Make a Change”
B.
Promoting CECA’s Fairness, Inclusion and
annual programme
Respect (FIR) programmes
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CECA Wales - Annual Review 2021-22
Partnership 1.
We’ll continue to develop, maintain and grow partnerships with other organisations to better serve our members including:
A.
Welsh Construction Forum with a particular focus on the Infrastructure
B.
Welsh Construction Federation Alliance (WCFA)
C.
Welsh Infrastructure Alliance (WIA)
Working Group
D.
Future Generations Commission to ensure alignment on infrastructure
E.
Regional Skills Partnerships to ensure that investment in construction
F
CITB to ensure a strong civil engineering input to skills and training
G.
Others including the Institute of Welsh Affairs (IWA), Cynnal Cymru,
matters
skills is a priority for the Welsh Government
activities
Federation Small Businesses (FSB), CBI and Chambers of Commerce to influence the wider infrastructure agenda
2. A. B.
We’ll work with specific partners on specific initiatives:
Welsh Construction Forum to deliver the agreed work programme Armed Services, as part of our commitment to the Covenant, to encourage cross-sector opportunities and build upon our Leadership Challenge
C.
CITB Cymru on specific skills related projects
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CECA Wales - Annual Review 2021-22
Decarbonisation We’ll support construction clients to reduce the carbon footprint of infrastructure projects across Wales by working with the Welsh Construction Forum and other partners to implement the CECA Wales Action Plan based on the 2021 Decarbonising Our Infrastructure (Datgarboneiddio Ein Seilwaith) report.
1.
This will involve 4 key themes:
A.
Justification – ensuring that carbon performance is embedded in
B.
Procurement – ensuring that procurement processes reflect carbon
C.
Materials and technology – ensuring that the choice of materials
D.
Business Development – supporting businesses towards a zero
investment justification models
performance
and technologies reflects carbon performance
carbon future
2. A. B.
We’ll support members to decarbonise their operations by:
Providing guidance on ways to reduce their carbon footprint Improving their understanding of carbon management planning for SMEs
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