November Overview – Chris Clarke
Welcome to the November edition of our Constructing Excellence Newsletter. It has been an exciting few weeks for Constructing Excellence, with our annual Midlands Construction Summit followed recently by the launch of the Gold Standard Verification scheme, which is a national scheme focussed on advancing best practice in public procurement, so naturally close to our heart at SCAPE!
I’ll start with a huge thankyou to Andrew and the Constructing Excellence Midlands team, as well as all of our speakers who joined us at Villa Park, for putting on what was a fantastic, thought provoking Construction Summit on the 18th October. Well attended as always, the audience heard from an incredible array of speakers on Building Safety, the Climate Crisis and Future Skills. In what remains a challenging time for our sector, the participation in a really high quality discussion from so many of our members was great to see; reminding us what we’re all about.
In national news, the Gold Standard verification scheme, operated in partnership by Constructing Excellence and Kings College London, is a new set of quality management criteria against which new and existing public procurement frameworks can be reviewed to ensure they achieve and improve upon the highest standards of operation and delivery.
The Gold Standard verification scheme, which launched on Wednesday 1st November, has been developed by an industry task force, led by Professor David Mosey CBE, following his recommendations in “An Independent Review of Public Sector Construction Frameworks” – commissioned by the Cabinet Office in 2021 to evaluate whether frameworks are creating value and efficiency. It forms a key part of the UK Government’s policy on construction procurement, and builds on the principles of the Construction Playbook.
You can read the Constructing Excellence Press release here.
