Despite the growing pressure on construction firms to comply with new legislation Bibby Financial Services, who nconducted the survey, is warning owners and managers in the sector not to neglect the day-to-day running of their business or they will suffer in the long term.

Construction contracts may now account for eight per cent of the UK’s Gross Domestic Product but with such a huge strain being put on construction firms to comply with the ever increasing stream of legislation, firms are in danger of neglecting their business and dedicating senior resource to tackling the raft of changes, rather than focusing on core activities such as winning new contracts.

Major legislative changes hitting the sector in 2007 include, the CIS scheme, which will streamline the way in which sub contractors are paid, and the revised provisions in existing Construction (Design and Management) Regulations, which aims to help simplify health and safety law.

Regulations
Andrew Dixon, director of construction finance at Bibby Financial Services, said: “With so many updates to regulations coming through each year it is really difficult for construction firms to keep abreast of the changes that affect them. However, given the very serious consequences of failing to comply owners and managers need to realise that they can’t just stick their head in the sand and hope it goes away.

“With updates and new legislation now introduced twice yearly in April and October, owners and managers need to dedicate adequate time to deal with these changes as they occur. It can be a real struggle to do this alone and many construction firms rely on specialists to help simplify the process for them, ultimately freeing up their time to focus on winning new contracts and dealing with the overall management of the business”.

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Susie Hughes
The Editor © Hardhatter 2006