Blog Author: Peter Hibberd Recently, the Bank of England governor claimed that his ex-chief economist’s view that inflation may reach 4% was alarmist and that we should not overreact to rising prices. Overreacting is one thing but making sensible provision is another. Fluctuations in labour and material prices in relation to construction projects can, and do, quickly erode a contractor’s margin. Over recent years, price inflation has been benign, which has led to those entering building contracts giving less consideration to its impact and to…

Blog Authors: Marcus Harling and Alistair Russell – Burges Salmon LLP Electronic signatures, data rooms, Mercury execution? Evolving working arrangements mean we should all double check exactly how to execute construction documents. Whilst smart contracts and digital signatures are still very much the immediate future, for most people they did not arrive in time to help with the complexities of contract execution created by the COVID-19 lockdown. Suddenly the traditional way of contract execution became almost impossible and old questions on remote Mercury compliant execution…

Blog Author: Peter Hibberd Those involved with construction frequently berate themselves and others for its poor performance; often rightly. However, there remains a failure to recognise fully what can be done to improve. The tendency to concentrate simply on improving efficiency is not enough because one can be efficient without creating value. What must be improved is quality and productivity as these will create project life value for the client and a better return to the participants without increasing costs disproportionately. Those two objectives are…