GIRI celebrates 10th anniversary with special event at the ICE

More than 80 senior leaders from UK construction organisations gathered at the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) in London on 27 November to celebrate ten years of The Get It Right Initiative.

The event was hosted by Ed McCann from Expedition Engineering and past president of the ICE who was one of the driving forces behind the formation of GIRI. The day saw key figures from industry and GIRI reflect on how the initiative came into being, the achievements of the last 10 years, and the challenges that remain to eliminate avoidable error in the construction industry.

Sir John Armitt

Sir John Armitt, chair of the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority’s Expert Advisory Council, who spoke at the launch of GIRI a decade ago, returned to address members at the 10th anniversary. Sir John praised the diversity of GIRI membership, commenting that to achieve the goals GIRI is working towards requires all the different players in the sector to work together collaboratively.

“The traditional approach in this country – the separation of design and construction – is a relic of the Victorian era, and yet we persist with it,” said Sir John. “What other industry separates manufacturing from design? How will we get construction right if designers aren’t working with the people who will do the assembly? Getting it right first time comes down to understanding, in detail, what it is that you are doing.”

He also criticised the move to self-regulation, saying it doesn’t work in any sector, and highlighted the importance of education and training for an industry so dependent on the skills of the people employed to do the work. 

Ensuring the education sector is fit for purpose is one of the challenges facing GIRI and construction in the years ahead, said Sir John, but he added that the sector also has a huge opportunity. “If we can go for zero accidents, we can go for zero defects. This should be the objective.”

Doug Baldock

As Ed McCann noted, it became apparent early that for GIRI to go anywhere, it needed clients onboard. And demonstrating the impact that clients can have in terms of influencing outcomes, Doug Baldock from the NHS New Hospitals Programme (NHP) gave GIRI members a brief introduction to how the programme is working to create a right-first-time approach to hospital delivery.

“The biggest change we are trying to create is a centralised programme of work to deliver hospitals in a standardised way and improve as we go,” he said. “As much as possible, we are using modern methods of construction, and we are developing a procurement strategy in line with Project 13 principles.”

Doug explained that the NHP has four goals: to deliver cheaper and faster; to enhance standards for modern healthcare facilities, including compliance with the Building Safety Act and NHS net-zero targets; to create capability and help tackle the skills shortage by fostering an environment that enables the construction industry to invest in itself; and to ensure different regions get the hospitals they need.

Hospital 2.0 is designed to help the NHP achieve these goals. “This is a system built to translate programme requirements into a set of design solutions that will enable us to build hospitals safer, cheaper and faster. We have also generated lessons learned over the last few years and we are engaging with stakeholders across the NHS, including clinical stakeholders. This isn’t just about building hospitals; it is also about creating a situation that allows the UK to flourish and benefits patients and staff. We want to create a blueprint for the NHS to deliver hospitals over and over again once we have left the programme.”

Doug explained that as part of this, the programme has created the Alliance Framework, based on Project 13 principles, to engage with contractors. “We can’t learn across multiple projects unless we have an alliance agreement that allows us to share best practice, and risk is shared between contractors, clients and the supply chain. Hospitals in the last 15 years have not been value for money. This contractual arrangement is trying to change how we deliver.”

Emer Murnaghan

Emer Murnaghan OBE, innovation director for Graham Group and member of the GIRI Strategic Leadership Group, was also a key player in the formation of GIRI. Talking about those early days, she told members that one of the main frustrations was that no one was talking about error and rework, particularly in boardrooms, despite its impact. “To get the attention of the industry, we knew we needed to talk about money.” 

This led to the initial research and the headline figure of £21 billion wasted every year on error. “This figure shocked us at first, particularly the 5% direct cost in an industry where contractor profit margins sit between 2-3%”

Emer explained that GIRI was founded to change industry attitudes to focus on error, to improve knowledge and understanding of the whole design and construction system, and to enhance decision-making and planning skills by improving the data.

She described how Tom Barton, who became GIRI’s first executive director from 2017 until his death in 2020, galvanised the initiative, and praised his replacement, Cliff Smith, whose commitment to spreading the GIRI message has seen him speak at more than 70 industry events, conferences, webinars and debates, helping to grow the membership from the initial 17 organisations to over 135. “The diversity of today’s membership reflects the varied stakeholders in the whole project lifecycle.”

Emer also highlighted other GIRI activities and achievements, including the development of a suite of training that targets the root causes of error, a continued commitment to research, the GIRI Error Reduction Framework, which is currently being piloted by Graham, and the launch of the Tom Barton Award at the ICE Awards to honour GIRI’s founding director and celebrate innovation in error reduction.

Cliff Smith

Current GIRI executive director Cliff Smith opened by saying how proud he is to work in construction. “This industry gets so much flack, but we provide a great service for society that is often not recognised, and I am passionate about it.” He added that the 10th anniversary of GIRI was an important moment to reflect, celebrate, and consider “where we go from here”.

Cliff noted that, since the Grenfell inquiry, there is a cultural movement for change within the industry, and that GIRI has been at the forefront. “Over the years, the demand for improvement has increased, and we are the experts on error, its implications, and the benefits of avoiding it. It is our USP, and we will keep the focus on this... The Building Safety Act and Part 2A of the Building Regulations have changed the environment for quality, and these all align with GIRI’s strategy.”

Looking ahead, Cliff announced the imminent launch of a new video series on tackling the most common causes of error, and said that GIRI is also focusing on forging new partnerships across the sector. 

And research will continue. “We need a strong evidence base, so we are working with the CQI (Chartered Quality Institute) on metrics and enhancing the effectiveness of tools such as the GIRI Error Reduction Framework. GIRI has also sponsored students via research grants, we plan to collaborate on the sponsorship of a PhD on error, and we are developing an Operatives training course as well as e-learning modules based on the Design Guide.”

He added that 2026 will see GIRI broaden its focus to give more attention to the commercial and residential sectors, as well as targeting design consultancies and SMEs.

“We are immensely grateful to all our member organisations for your support.”

David Porter

The final speaker of the day was ICE President David Porter, who congratulated everyone involved in making GIRI what it is today. “It is a fantastic initiative, and the industry really needs it. You make the industry better because of those conversations that took place about the problem and your determination to do something about it.” 

The ICE, he said, is continually focused on making the industry better for the benefit of society, which it does in three key ways: by ensuring that people are professionally qualified, including the recent introduction of infrastructure engineer qualifications; sharing knowledge via events and mandatory CPD topics; and by having opinions and sharing these through reports.

“We are conscious that these take the right tone – we make sure we don’t write a report that says everything is grand if the industry knows it isn’t – and that’s why we are very happy to support GIRI and to use that tone and influence to drive improvement.”

David closed by praising the honest and open tone of the meeting. “We need to talk about these things and recognise that some of the decisions we have taken, such as self-regulation, are not in the best interests of the industry. We need to have these conversations to make the industry better. I am delighted we are celebrating 10 years of GIRI, but we must not stop now.”

In closing, Ed McCann shared an apt quote by American anthropologist Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.”

“What we are doing really matters,” he told GIRI members. “But the job is not done. We are where the manufacturing sector was in 1987. It took them 30 years to get where they are today. This won’t happen overnight. We are 10 years into a 30-year journey, so buckle up.”

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