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Read MoreBESA has been providing best-in-class technical guidance and standards to the building engineering services sector for over 100 years.
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Read MoreAs a BESA member you have access to expert support from our experienced and knowledgeable legal & commercial team.
Read MoreIt is crucial that employers understand and manage the wide range of regulatory requirements and obligations they must comply with.
Read MoreContracts can be a minefield. Ensuring your company's contracts are managed efficiently can save your business not just time, but money too.
Read MoreIt is crucial that employers understand and manage the wide range of regulatory requirements and obligations they must comply with.
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Read MoreBESA is proud to celebrate the achievements of upcoming talent within the building services industry.
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Read MoreA dedicated area to help raise awareness on the key issues surrounding the current lack of diversity, promoting the business benefits of a diverse workforce and sharing best practice case studies and actionable resources.
Read MoreA dedicated area to help raise awareness of mental health wellbeing in the building engineering services sector, providing practical resources and tools to help companies address this important issue in their workplace
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Read MoreA dedicated area to focus on how we in the building engineering services sector can learn from and improve following the Grenfell Tower tragedy.
Read MoreA dedicated area highlighting BESA's efforts to address the issue of retentions in the built environment.
Read MoreA dedicated area with resources and guidance for members affected by the Carillion collapse, as well as information on late payment reform.
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Monday, January 15, 2018
The liquidation of construction giant Carillion could lead to potentially catastrophic losses for thousands of SMEs, according to the Building Engineering Services Association (BESA) and the electrotechnical and engineering services trade body ECA.
According to its latest set of accounts, Carillion was holding over £800m in payments owed to sub-contractors. There is growing alarm that much of this money will be lost leaving many more firms at risk of financial collapse.
Peter Aldous, MP for Waveney and longstanding champion of SMEs in industry, introduced a draft Bill to Parliament just last week, which seeks to amend the 1996 Construction Act to ensure retention money is held in a deposit protection scheme – avoiding just this kind of situation.
“The Bill was developed precisely with just this kind of nightmare scenario in mind,” said BESA President Tim Hopkinson. “We are aware of the frantic attempts going on behind the scenes to rescue Carillion’s projects and switch them to other contractors, but unless retention money is protected – there is a danger that the problem is just being moved to another place and that SMEs will remain equally vulnerable.”
“Carillion’s move into liquidation places their huge supply chain – which includes many electrical and other specialist contractors - at risk of losing millions of pounds, which will threaten companies and jobs”, comments ECA Director of Business Paul Reeve. “While this is a clear and present disaster for construction and wider maintenance, the question will ultimately follow, why did Carillion appear so attractive to clients even as they moved towards collapse?”
As a result, BESA and ECA are calling for the following five-point action plan:
Given that 99% of the industry’s 280,000 businesses are SMEs, we would also ask that the Paul Uppal, Small Business Commissioner, support this plan.
The Bill, which has attracted widespread cross-party support, highlights the fact that more than £10.5bn of SME’s potential working capital is locked up in retentions every year and £700m was entirely lost to SMEs over the past three years.
“Well run businesses are being starved of vital working capital and put at risk of insolvency through no fault of their own,” added Mr Hopkinson. “It is time for the abuse of the retentions system to end and for sub-contractors’ hard earned money to be protected from this kind of supply chain failure.”
The average UK contractor has £27,500 withheld per year in retentions and, under the terms of the ‘Aldous Bill’ this money would be protected in the event of an insolvency somewhere else in the supply chain.
Mr. Reeve concluded: “The fact that a company who recently worked on prestigious public contracts such as Crossrail and the Olympic Stadium can be in this situation should be a wake-up call to those procuring major public infrastructure work.”
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